7. Ash
Ash
Aman dressed in a brown suit floats, face down, in the pool of natural hot water inside the cave. Steam rises from the surface of the water. The dim lighting adds to the horrifying atmosphere.
“He was like this when we got here, we swear!” the redhead cries. She’s the one who screamed. I recognized her voice.
Even though I’m certain I’m too late, I jump in and swim to reach the man, then flip him over. Death is clear in Peter’s blue-and-gray face and unfocused gaze. I pull down his eyelids.
I carry him out, then lay his body on the cave floor at the edge of the baths before I climb out. Judging by the look of him, he’s been deceased for hours.
“He’s dead.” I stand over him. Damn it.
“It looks like he drank and drowned,” the redheaded girl says. “That’s his stuff over there.” She points at the bench behind me.
I pick up Peter’s brown bag, the one he’s carried since I first met him, and sniff it.
After a quick mental sort through the scents, I identify nothing unusual.
Peter didn’t bring his bag with him last night to the celebration, or I’d have smelled anyone else who rubbed against the bag as they passed him.
An empty liquor bottle lies discarded next to his bag.
I pick it up and sniff out whiskey along with Peter’s saliva.
I shove the bottle into his bag. “Discreetly,” I say to the pair of females awaiting orders.
“Find Blade and tell him to keep everyone away from here, including the guards. Then find Soren and tell him in private what happened. You are not to involve any humans. Understood?”
The females nod.
“I can’t hear you,” I say.
“Yes, Alpha.” They scurry out of the cave.
“You can go now too,” I tell Runa.
“I’m staying.”
“I need to investigate.”
“Under my supervision, wolf. This is a serious crime, and I need to be sure my pack is represented while you investigate.”
She thinks I’ll plant something or otherwise compromise the scene, which looks like either suicide or an accident.
“As you wish.” I reach behind me and pull off my shirt, toss it on the ground, then strip out of my jeans. Runa’s eyes flash hazel, telling me her biological response to me is strong.
Swallowing, she turns away. “You could’ve warned me.”
“I did. You insisted on staying.” My bones glide over each other as I re-form into a wolf so I can investigate, since my nose is far more sensitive in my animal form than in my bipedal one.
First, I scent the air and sort out the different odors.
Fresh water, subtle detergent from the towels, and death.
I stick my nose in the bag and come away with whiskey, herbs, metals, and potions. Ink from the letter in the enclosed envelope. I sniff Peter’s body, particularly his fingers, where he might’ve scratched something or someone who forced him into the pool, but nothing unusual returns.
I sniff around the pool, cataloging the footsteps and noticing only a few I already recognize.
Since housekeeping arrived this morning, the cave had been scrubbed before they came.
I’ll confirm with my men if any of them bathed here yesterday and scrubbed the floor, but that’s unlikely. Besides, I’d recognize their scents.
There’s something else. My front paw hurts. I walk over to Runa and lift my front paw. Look at my paw.
When Runa stares straight ahead with her shoulders pulled back and her posture rigid, I whine, hoping that will put her more at ease. I need her to see my paw. There’s something on it.
I growl when she does nothing.
Our eyes meet.
Hers are completely hazel.
An aroused omega signals her interest by displaying hazel eyes, a biological response reserved for an alpha male and an omega picked out as a possible mate.
The omega first shows interest in an alpha male before the alpha pursues the female.
In other packs, an alpha male could pursue a female regardless of the omega’s biological signals, such as the eye color change or the “inviting.”
But not in my pack.
In my territory, it is a crime punishable by harrowing to pursue an omega who shows no interest. The Harrow Law is designed to protect our most vulnerable wolves: omega females. The law came after my mother found my fourteen-year-old sister dead in a field without her pants on.
Growling, I shake my head.
Runa steps away from me.
I follow and bump her shoulder with my nose, then lift my paw.
Finally, she looks down at it. From her frown, I can tell she’s puzzled.
“You stepped on something.” She searches the ground. “It’s not paint. Keep walking.” I pace around the pool, but my pad feels sore. I reach Runa again and lift my paw, so she can get a better look.
Runa crouches and swipes her thumb over my front pad. That tickles.
She does it again. “There’s a strange sheen, like you crushed a pearl. It’s not coming off.” She sniffs. “Doesn’t smell like anything bad.”
Blade rushes into the cave and comes straight for us. A growl rips out of me that makes him stop and lift his arms.
“Easy, big guy. You called me, remember?”
“I remember,” Runa says, then points at my foot. Before she gets a chance to talk about the pearlescent discoloration on my paw, I shift back into human.
Blade crouches by Peter, keeping his hands to himself. “He drowned?” my friend asks as he regards the small, relatively shallow pool. “How deep is the bath?”
“Maybe seven feet,” Runa answers. She tosses my jeans to me. I dress while Blake looks from her standing with her hands crossed over her chest, seemingly fuming, and to me in a similar position, not fuming but thinking about what to do about Runa’s display of affection.
I should think about Peter’s death, and not only because it means I’m out of my meds.
The humans will never allow me to go unmedicated, but I won’t accept potions from just anyone. This will become a problem in a week’s time. I scrub my face. “This is a disaster. Thoughts?”
“I have them,” Blade says, briefly glancing at Runa, telling me he’ll share his thoughts with me in private.
“Poor guy,” she says. “What will you tell his family?”
“I’ll tell them he died in a fire.”
She gasps. “Why would you lie?”
“I can’t tell them he died face down in the water.” Unwanted memories flood my brain. I let them, because fending them off could spark my fire.
I wish my mother had never told me how she found my sister. I wish I hadn’t been home that day. I wish I didn’t have to investigate. But when you’re an Alpha, you must do what an Alpha does.
The scents of the group of men in their twenties that crossed into our territory that morning are still cataloged in my memory. They raped then strangled her. When we requested justice, the humans refused to hand them over to us, and the young men wouldn’t take responsibility for their actions.
Since the humans protected their men despite the indisputable evidence of their crimes, I declared war.
The humans and the Stormcrest pack would have everyone believe that I lost control of my element for no reason whatsoever. That I unleashed the fury of my fire because I couldn’t contain it. They denied and buried all reports of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, on at least six separate occasions, they tried to abduct me so they could trap me in one of their prisons. They would love nothing more than to experiment on the fire alpha.
Our war raged for over a decade because we found my sister discarded like a piece of trash. She was a Fireborn princess. A goofy, gray omega wolf. The kindest girl I’ve ever known.
I was seventeen at the time. The rest is history.
Gently, Runa touches my arm, her eyes softening as she probably senses my sadness. “I’m sorry.”
I roll my shoulder. “It’s fine.”
“When you say we should report that he died in the fire, do you mean your fire, not just a fire that broke out?”
“Mmhm.”
Runa frowns. “Wouldn’t you be accused of murder?”
“The Regulators are part of the human defense system. If Peter dies from my fire, he died in the line of duty, which will entitle his family to government benefits. All Regulators have life insurance policies tied to their work. The family will need it since he was the sole breadwinner.”
Runa stares.
“What?” I ask.
“I didn’t expect you to be kind.”
“Ah, well, when you’re the guy who burned down the world, you figure you exhausted the lifetime quota for being an asshole.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Blade says. “You’re still an asshole.”
Soren joins us in jeans and a black sweater, a pair of wolves padding behind him. Those are trackers.
The wolves sniff out everyone, starting with me.
Soren hovers over Peter’s body. “How long had he been with you?”
“Over a decade.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“We will investigate.”
“Not much to uncover,” I tell him. “My alchemist drank and drowned in your pool.”
The wolves who investigated the area around us shift into their human form and put on sweatpants from stacks on the benches around the pool before approaching us.
The taller of the two, with light brown hair and light brown eyes, speaks first. “The scents are all cataloged.”
“How many different people did you account for?” I ask.
“Including us two, eight.”
Runa’s frown deepens. “Only eight?”
I wonder if she came to the same conclusion I did.
This is a public bath where the wolf trackers should have found at least twenty scents.
None of my males are cataloged as having bathed here when they came here after the party and before bed.
It means someone with unlimited access to the pool scrubbed the place clean of scents.
“Likely a case of too much whiskey,” I say, wanting them to think I’ve accepted the results of their investigation.
The tracker nods. “It appears that way.”
Peter liked a glass or two after work. But I’m not sold on the idea of him drowning in the pool.
It’s too convenient for my enemies that my alchemist died upon my arrival in enemy territory.
I trusted that Peter wouldn’t kill me with the suppressor meds he gave me.
He helped me contain my fire. Which is already starting to heat my body since I haven’t taken my morning alchemy cocktail.
Last night, I took six additional cocktails, and it barely dulled the burn in my veins.
You’d think the lower temperatures out here would cool me off a little, but it seems I’m running hotter than ever.
The little omega next to me, with her sassy attitude and perfect ass, heats my blood in the most inappropriate ways.
I’m marrying her damn sister. “Tell your sister she’ll need to attend the funeral.”
“When will you hold it?” Runa asks.
“Blade?”
“I think we should do it tonight,” he says.
“Objections?” I ask Soren.
Soren shakes his head. “I’ll tell the staff to prepare a feast.”
“Thank you. Now, if you would all give me a minute with Peter…”
Runa leaves right away, but Soren lingers, his instincts probably telling him he should keep an eye on me.
His instincts are correct, but he can’t deny me a moment alone with my alchemist. Blade leaves.
He knows what to do. We need another body to burn in the pit, because I’m sending Peter’s body for an autopsy.