22. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
C ass had to hold his breath or he’d lose the contents of his stomach. Three bodies lay naked and lifeless. It was clear they’d been dead for a while. Their blood soaked the ground days ago, becoming a part of the earth. Cass wasn’t a forensics expert or a coroner, but rigor mortis had set in. Bugs had started making a home in them.
He had to shift. The smell was too much in wolf form. It wasn’t much better as a human but it helped a little. He’d experienced nothing as bad in his life and he’d seen a lot as a deputy.
The forest was dense. Trees clustered together, vying for sunlight. And they were larger than in other parts of the forest. Oaks stood strong and mighty. They were kings of the forest compared to the sugar maples and various species of conifers. A tree had met its end sometime ago. It appeared to be maple, but Cass couldn’t really tell. It was big enough to hide the bodies from Cass. When he peered over the log, he had to hold his nose. The smell still clawed at him.
The bodies lay on their stomachs, so Cass couldn’t see their faces. He couldn’t catch their scent because of the decay. Two of them lay together, with one laying over the other. The one on top was female. The bottom person’s gender was unknown, but given the smaller size, he’d assume for the moment that she was female, too.
The other one was male. A couple of feet separated him from the other two. The male might have been older. It appeared as though he had gray hair, but with the decay and outside elements taking a toll on the body, it was difficult to know for sure.
The woman had a hole in the back of her skull. It was a small hole, which most likely meant someone had shot them from behind. The blast would have done the most damage to her face. He would bet money the woman underneath her died in a similar fashion.
The women could have been a couple. Maybe even mates. Given what he knew about the alpha’s agenda, it made sense in a sick sort of way. The older man was an outlier. He just didn’t fit in. “Why are you here?”
And why were they naked? Even the old man was. Unless it was some sick sort of game the killer played with his victims. The old man and the woman on top of the other might be wolves. The rotting smell kept him from knowing for sure. The woman on the bottom might not have been. Cass had no way of knowing. He had a gut feeling.
The old man might have been out for a run and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“What about you two?” The body posture seemed to suggest one was protecting the other. He didn’t think it was the way they fell, just based on hand placements and knowing how protective wolf shifters were of the people they loved. Especially their mates.
But why were they out here on pack lands where anyone in the pack could find them? Unless Kreiger had wanted Cass to follow him. If that was the case, then the whole thing might be one big setup. It didn’t matter if it was. He was there now. He might as well assess the crime scene and see if he could find anything. If Krieger intended to come after him, he would know it soon enough.
Cass searched for anything out of place. He found nothing, but the scene was days old. The entire time he searched, he thought about the coroner’s report. What would it tell him? Obviously, a bullet to the head killed them, but there was bound to be more evidence. Most of the time, the victims spoke their truth. Gregory May might have only told them he was beaten to death, but the victims in the woods would be a different story.
Cass just had to chase down the evidence before anyone else died. He could practically hear the clock ticking down to the next murder.
The further away he got from the bodies, the less the smell got to him. Being upwind helped.
He shifted into his third form. Hair went a long way toward keeping warm.
He’d never show Riley his third form. If Riley saw him as half man and half beast, resembling a wolf and man hybrid, he’d scar his little warlock for life.
Why the thought jumped in his mind he didn’t know other than Riley was never very far from it. Even when he should focus on the murder investigation, he was thinking about Riley.
Cass smelled fresh blood before he saw the body. The killer hadn’t hidden him like the others, but he was naked and ripped to shreds. The killer was clearly a wolf shifter. Huge gashes covered his chest, exposing flesh and rib bones. Unlike the other victims, he had just died minutes before and not by a bullet. Not even an hour had gone by since Cass had followed Krieger into the forest and there he was, another victim.
What did Krieger’s death mean?
A wolf shifter did this, and not that long ago.
Cass hadn’t heard screams or any sounds beside those of the forest. He would have if Krieger had expected the attack, but he’d been caught off guard.
Cass didn’t have very long to contemplate why Krieger was a victim instead of the perpetrator. Whoever killed Krieger was nearby.
Cass shifted to his wolf and crouched down. If someone had been watching him, he had already exposed himself. If the killer had a gun, Cass had less of a chance of getting shot by staying low. Cass might hear someone coming if he stayed still.
He didn’t have to wait long. He heard movement in the forest. The crunching of snow and the wolves moving through the brush came first. And it wasn’t just one wolf. If Cass were to guess, he’d say there were at least eight, maybe more, and they surrounded him.
The alpha was in human form but he wasn’t clothed, so he wouldn’t stay that way for long. “You’ve become a liability, Cass. Between Leo’s sloppiness and you discovering the truth, you’re trying my patience.”
So, Miller lost his patience with Leo and blamed him for Cass and Iven’s investigation going in the right direction.
Cass shifted to his third form. He’d have a better chance of surviving the attack. When the alpha was done talking, he’d call for his henchmen to carry out the punishment. And that’s exactly how Miller would see it, not as an attack on an innocent person but as a pack member needing to be punished.
“You needed to be loyal to the pack first. Not the sheriff. He’s a warlock. Not a part of your wolf family. I should have counted on you to fudge the evidence, at the very least, but you won’t do that.” The alpha sniffed the air. His expression turned to disgust. “I can smell sulfur on you.”
Cass growled, his hackles raising.
“You mated one of them. The sheriff’s son?” The alpha shook his head. “You should have picked a wolf.”
The alpha raised his hand and brought it down as if it were a guillotine. It signaled the start of the attack.
Cass braced himself for it.
All he had to do was stay alive long enough for Iven to come.