Chapter Eighteen #2
Erica stood from the sofa and made her way down the hall to snoop for anything that might add a little more to the tales Ronan had spun about her parents.
The first door she opened was to the office.
Cluttered with boxes of files that she imagined were work-related, she was ready to close the door and move on, but something stopped her.
Curiosity prodded her to walk in and take a closer look, search for anything else to help complete this image Ronan had fashioned of Cole.
By her observation, Cole was a devoted alpha, a competent cop, a former die-hard lover, and a tragically wounded ex-husband who wanted to be the father who wasn’t needed anymore.
He was bold and assertive when he needed to be, compassionate and willing to forgive and forget, but still holding on to the broken pieces of a heart that once held so much love for someone who’d pushed him away.
Erica wanted to find something else, anything to make him into the villain again, so she could praise her mother for the strength she’d had to walk away from a marriage that wasn’t worth fighting for.
She let her hands glide over the books on the shelves as she made her way toward his desk. Some were harmless crime novels or wartime fiction. Others made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, like the few books on nature photography. Did they share more than a few facial features?
The desk was covered in papers, reports, bills, and color-coded folders stacked atop a closed laptop that she could only guess were the applications for sanctuary that Dominic had told her about.
What made the blood in her veins go cold was the old framed photograph propped up behind his computer mouse.
Inside a shiny golden frame was the exact same photo that Erica prized and had put on her mantel back home.
It was the same one she had busted on the ground that morning.
Her mother’s grinning face looked back at her again with a younger Erica in her arms, missing teeth and all, on the church steps.
Where had he gotten it? Did her mother send him a copy?
Did he ask for it during one of their trips to Tolstone when she was little?
With shaking hands, she picked it up and stared at the faces of two people she no longer knew.
Her mother wasn’t the same strong woman who could do no wrong, and she wasn’t the na?ve child anymore. She knew the truth.
A sound broke through her reverent silence. Growls and snarls. The ripping of cloth. All of it muffled by the walls between her and the backyard, and the baseball game still playing on the television.
She put the picture down and rushed back into the living room.
The blinds over the window that looked out into the yard were closed, but she didn’t have to see what was going on to form a few guesses.
It sounded like two huge dogs in the middle of a do-or-die fight.
Yelps and barks froze her in place, her feet immobile as she listened, though the sound of her own heartbeat grew louder in her ears.
There must have been another shifter outside, but who would be stupid enough to fight a beta like Ronan?
Then, she wondered why anyone would be trespassing on his territory like this.
Cole had explained in the squad car how Wyatt was out to betray Dominic and seize his place as Prime Alpha with the backing of some less respectable shifters.
Was this one of Wyatt’s cronies? Were they after Erica and not Ronan?
That was why she was here after all, to be under his protection if Wyatt should try something underhanded.
Erica looked once more at the lonely shotgun on the mantel. She ran for it without a second thought. In Decatur, she had taken a few classes on firearms in the event that she ever decided to get one for herself. Those lessons, plus a few trips to the local gun range, finally came in handy.
She quickly loaded three slugs, though she knew it could handle more, and turned the safety off, but made sure not to let her finger get anywhere near the trigger until she was absolutely ready.
A long, heaving whimper preceded an unsettling silence, and she held completely still, listening to the single growl of the enemy wolf at the back door. The gun rattled in her hands, and she forced her hands to steady themselves as she aimed the barrel from where she stood by the fireplace.
She didn’t let her mind wander to what could have happened to Ronan.
She couldn’t allow herself to think about who this shifter was or why they wanted to hurt her.
She simply guessed how tall the wolf might be, since she had never seen one in real life, and looked down the barrel to line up the sight.
Not even when the back door crashed down, shards of wood and glass scattering across the clean floor of the kitchen, did she let herself flinch. One hasty move and she’d lose her chance. She had to make this shot count.
Larger than she anticipated, the wolf stared her down, golden eyes glinting with an insatiable, feral ferocity.
Ebony fur bristled and gleamed in the kitchen light.
Triangular ears pricked forward as claws scraped against the tile.
Lips pulled up to reveal bloodstained fangs as it snarled at her.
The beast prowled forward, steps slow as he sized up his prey.
Gathering up all the courage she had left, Erica refused to be prey. Not today.
The wolf leapt for her, and she pulled the trigger.
The animal jerked backward in midair and fell to the floor.
Erica, too, was thrown by the recoil of the weapon and nearly hit her head on the edge of the mantel.
Her ears rang with the report of the gun, and her hands and arms tingled from the shockwave.
She knew a nasty bruise might show up on her shoulder tomorrow where she’d braced the butt of the shotgun.
Massive paws kicked as it tried to scramble back to its feet. A shrill, pitiful whine struggled from its throat, and she watched as blood caked over its chest and smeared across the polished white ceramic kitchen tiles. She cycled the round in preparation to shoot again, but it wasn’t needed.
Tiny wisps of smoke curled upward from the hole in the animal’s chest, and whines were displaced by a sickening gurgling sound. Then there was stillness, while the sports commentator announced a home run.
Erica stared at the dead animal, the dead shifter, and would have dropped the gun if she hadn’t fallen to her knees first. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she heard the soft, breathy whimpers of her godfather from outside. He was still alive.
With little strength left in her arms, she let the gun slip from her hands and tried to tell her body to move, to go to Ronan’s aid. She knew nothing about animals or injuries, but she had to do something.
As she sat there, too dazed to even take her eyes off the lifeless creature, she kept telling herself that she’d had to do it. She’d had to kill it. It might have killed Ronan, and if given the chance, it would have killed her too.
All the thoughts she should have considered before ever picking up the gun raced through her mind.
What would Dominic think when they told him that she had killed a shifter?
What would her father think of her? Did she just become a murderer?
It was self-defense, but could she even be arrested for something like this?
Somehow, she expected the wolf to morph back into a human.
It didn’t. Its golden eyes stared into the endless abyss of death, the soul gone, and the heart never to beat again.
*
While Hank took care of Xavier and tracked down Nathan’s trail from Wyatt’s house, Dominic headed straight for Renewed Relics. Before he came within a block of the place, he picked up the rebel alpha’s scent, and it sent his wolf spiraling into a fit of rage. He kept the beast at bay. For now.
If they couldn’t settle this as men, they would settle it in true shifter fashion. This time, he wouldn’t let Wyatt slink away with his tail between his legs.
He saw the lock busted on the front door, and he pushed his way through, unconcerned about the overhead bell announcing his arrival. The air inside the shop was pregnant with that all-consuming need for violence, for bloodshed and chaos.
He stopped and let the door shut behind him before he soundlessly tracked the steady heartbeat of the shifter that had upset the balance of his world. It wasn’t hard to pick up between the ticking of the clocks in the back corner of the shop and beneath the soft whirl of the air conditioner.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
“I guess Xavier told you where I would be,” Wyatt replied. Dominic adjusted his course to amble down an aisle lined with old cooking utensils on display racks. “I can smell his blood on you.”
“I won’t even ask how you would know what his blood smelled like.” If Dominic guessed right, Wyatt must have shed a drop or two of it himself to make the beta so meek and timid. “Instead, I’ll ask what the hell you were thinking when you put all those drugs in Erica’s house.”
The alpha’s feet shuffled against the old floorboards. “I didn’t put them there. Nathan did.”
“But you told him to. Why?”
Dominic saw a bit of movement between two vases and slowed, keeping all his senses open as he tracked Wyatt through the store.
“What makes you think I told him to?”
Dominic growled. “Quit playing games with me.”
“Games?” Wyatt laughed. “I’m not playing any games.”
Dominic could feel his claws slip out as he rounded the end of an aisle and glided between two end tables piled with vintage toy cars and trucks. “I’m getting sick of this, Wyatt! Xavier told me how you want Tolstone. What’s the angle here? Why bring Erica into it?”
“Simple.”
Dominic spun to face Wyatt, who stood only a few yards away in the open, three aisles over with his hands shoved in his pockets like he was just another wandering customer.