Chapter 13 #2
"The evidence points to her," Ryker said instead. Flat. Factual. He was sick to death of the weird little voice in his head filling him with doubts. He didn’t waver on his instincts or take risks with the pack. Period.
Gray exchanged a look with Cal. Whatever passed between them, they didn't share it with Ryker.
"There's something else we need to address," Gray said. "The Polar Plunge."
Ryker's gut tightened. He'd been circling that problem all night, hoping someone else would say it first. "The incidents are clustered around the north cove. Right next to where we're putting three hundred tourists in the water."
"If something goes wrong during the plunge..." Gray let the sentence hang.
"Yeah, hundreds of people," Cal finished. "Right next to whatever's been causing the disruptions."
The weight of it pressed down on Ryker's shoulders. This was real and it was dangerous. Whatever was happening in that cove could affect the entire festival.
"The business council is getting nervous," Gray continued.
"Vendors are asking questions. The cocoa station supplier heard about the equipment malfunctions and wants guarantees her generators won't cut out mid-event.
Inn guests are asking about 'weird dreams' at the front desk.
One of the food truck operators mentioned the boat captain's story to another vendor, and now there's talk spreading through the merchant network. "
"The humans don't know what's happening," Cal said. "But they're noticing something's off. Nervous vendors talk to tourists. Nervous tourists leave bad reviews. Bad reviews kill next year's attendance."
"Has anyone said the word yet?" Ryker asked.
Gray's expression was grim. "No one wants to. But if we can't figure out what's actually going on before the plunge..."
Cancellation. The word no one would speak aloud. The Polar Plunge was the crown jewel of Frost Fest, the event that drew crowds from across the Pacific Northwest. It was tradition. It was income. And served as the financial cushion that got the pack through winter and into spring.
If they cancelled, the damage would ripple for years.
"Look," Gray said, his tone shifting. "Right now it doesn't matter who's causing this. What matters is the event is less than a week out and we still don't know what we're dealing with. We need answers, not suspects."
Something hot flared in Ryker's chest. "We have a suspect. We have a whole coven of them living right next to the problem area, and we're acting like that's a coincidence."
"Ryker—"
"They've been here since October. Nothing happened for weeks, and then the second we start prepping for Frost Fest, everything goes to hell. The witches want permanent sanctuary. The council vote is in two weeks. You don't think a desperate pack might be more willing to make concessions?"
Cal shook his head. "That's a reach."
"Is it?" Ryker's voice came out harder than he intended. "Because from where I'm standing, the only people with motive and means are camped out on the north side of the island, waiting. And we're just supposed to ignore that because—what? Because Willow makes good pastries?"
The silence that followed was heavy. Gray watched him with that measured look, the one that said he was noticing everything Ryker wasn't saying.
"I'll take patrol today," Ryker said, before either of them could respond. "I can walk the shore myself and check the area near the plunge site."
Gray studied him for a long moment. "Fine. Report back by noon. Diego will be expecting answers from us."
Ryker grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door.
"Ryker." Gray's voice stopped him at the threshold. "We're not done talking about this thing with Willow."
"I know."
He pushed through the door into the frozen morning.
Dawn was breaking over Devils Point, muted light filtering through the cloud cover. The street was empty at this hour, too early for tourists, too cold for anyone without a reason to be outside. String lights from the festival gleamed against the shop fronts, their cheerful glow mocking him.
His gaze caught on the bakery window.
The lights were on and there was movement behind the glass.
He spotted her auburn hair twisted up in another clip first, then the flour dusted on her apron, while her hands were busy with something on the counter.
Her face was hidden by shadow, but he didn’t need to see it to imagine the anger she threw his way.
He could see it in the way she moved with purpose and certainty, building something beautiful while he stood out here building nothing but excuses.
His feet wanted to carry him across the cobblestones. Every cell in his body remembered how she'd felt against him. The sounds she made. The way her magic had prickled against his skin like static, like recognition, like something his locked-down wolf should have responded to.
He waited for instinct to weigh in. To push him toward her or pull him away, to offer any kind of guidance.
The void where his wolf should be advising him stayed silent and he was getting pretty damned sick of it.
Ryker turned toward the shore.
The wind hit him as he walked, coming off the water and cutting through his jacket. He welcomed it. The physical sensation gave him something to focus on beyond the acid churn of his own thoughts.
He had to remember this was about protecting the pack.
If there was a chance Willow was dangerous, he had to pursue it.
He simply wouldn’t allow his personal feelings to cloud his judgement.
He’d built an entire case on correlation and coincidence because believing she was guilty meant believing he'd been right to destroy her.
But there was still a chance that the truth was simpler and uglier.
He'd wanted her. Wanted her with an intensity that seemed too strong to be real. Not to mention it bypassed every wall he'd built since Cara. And when that feeling got too big to contain, he'd reached for the only weapon he knew would work. Her mother's name.
Because wanting had nearly destroyed him once.
The beach appeared through the fog, rocks glistening with frost, waves lapping at the waterline in their endless rhythm. Not far from the peninsula where he stood, the plunge site waited. The cove sat beyond that, where something might still be lurking.
If Willow really wanted to help, she could have done more. She could have used that witch sense to track the source of the disruptions, to protect the pack she'd been trying to join since October.
Instead she was in her bakery, kneading dough alone, because he'd made sure she knew exactly how unwelcome her help would be.
Ryker stopped at the waterline and stared out at the dark churn of the Puget Sound. The Plunge was closing in fast. Which meant he was running out of time to find something concrete that would prove he wasn't just a paranoid asshole with a vendetta.
He'd stay out here all night if that's what it took. Scour every inch of shoreline, every tide pool, every shadow between the rocks. Until he found the evidence that would justify everything he'd done.
The cold was already seeping through his jacket, numbing his fingers, making his breath fog thick in the salt air. Human senses weren’t going to cut it. Not for this.
He stripped off his jacket and tossed it onto a dry boulder. His shirt followed, then his boots, and his jeans. The wind bit into bare skin, raising gooseflesh across his chest and arms. He didn’t hate the sensations. Pain was simple to understand. Pain made sense.
The shift started in his spine. A crack of vertebrae realigning, pressure building at the base of his skull as his skeleton began to reshape itself.
He dropped to his knees on the sand, hands splayed, fingers curling as the bones shortened and thickened.
Fur rippled across his shoulders in a wave of heat, black and silver threading through as his body remembered what it was meant to be.
His jaw lengthened. Teeth sharpened to points.
The world exploded into scent and sound—brine and rotting kelp, the copper tang of something dead further down the beach, the distant hum of a boat engine miles offshore.
His ears swiveled, catching the rustle of grass on the bluff above, the skitter of crabs in the tide pools, the slow pulse of the island breathing around him.
He rose on four legs and shook out his coat.
The man's guilt and grief dulled to a low ache beneath sharper instincts. In this form, he didn't care about witches or festivals or the woman he'd broken. Only territory and threat mattered now. And finding whatever didn't belong on this shore and dragging it into the light.
He lifted his muzzle to the wind and caught something underneath the salt.
Not pack. Not witch. Or the faint chemical trace of hunter tech he'd learned to recognize years ago. This was older, stranger—brine and cold depths, the mineral tang of caves that never saw sunlight, something almost sweet. Cloying. It coated the back of his throat and made his hackles rise.
The scent threaded through the fog like a lure, there and gone. He padded closer to the waterline, paws sinking into wet sand, and inhaled again. Salt. Kelp. The rot from before. But that other trace had vanished, swallowed by the tide or hidden by whatever left it.
Something was out there and it didn't belong on this island.
His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, and he started toward the cove.