Heir To The Pack (The Cursed Pack Book 1) (17 page)

The look on Dash’s face
made her take a step back. His eyes were bloodshot, his face sweaty and filthy,
his expression a feral half-snarl.

“Dash?” She wanted him to
speak, to reassure her that he was the same man who’d held her close earlier.

“Annie,” he said, and
opened his arms to her.

The emotional tension
coming off him in waves made her hesitate. But he needed her. She stepped in to
give him a hug.

His arms tightened
convulsively, and he buried his face in her neck, his breath hot against her skin.
He released her slowly and stepped back.

“Everything will be fine,”
he said.

Right. Always had to be Alpha,
take charge of the situation and try to make her feel better. She wouldn’t call
him on it, because she could do with some reassurance, anyhow.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve had better days,”
she said. “What will happen now?”

“I need to talk to
Michael.” Dash explained what had happened to the Oracle’s assistant.

The cold burn of stomach
acid made its metallic mark in the back of Annie’s throat. “Where is he?”

“They’re bringing him up
here.”

She made eye contact with
Daisy, who half-nodded, scooped Jack up in her arms despite his wail of
protest, and left the room at a pace. Her mother understood exactly what she
was thinking. Jack didn’t need to see the injured man, or hear what he had to
say.

She turned to follow them,
but Dash’s hand on her arm stopped her. His gaze sought hers.

“Stay.”

Of course she wanted to
stay. Did he say it out of obligation, or because he truly wanted her there? Either
way, she wanted, no, needed, to understand what had happened.

Two men half-carried
Michael into the room and laid him on the couch. His nose was smashed crooked,
and under his eyes there were rings of angry purplish black skin. As the men
put him down he moaned, revealing broken front teeth.

Annie had never seen
anyone injured so badly outside of the movies. Perhaps she ought to feel sick,
but instead she felt cold, cold to the bone.

“If you can change you’ll
feel a lot better,” Dash said.

Michael, half-conscious,
twisted and turned, continuing to moan. Dash moved to his side and bent over
him. What was he doing?

Dash’s eyes glowed pale
blue and he let out a low growl. In return, Michael’s eyes glowed, too, a pale
uncanny yellow over the dark brown. Annie shivered.

Taking Michael’s arm, Dash
held it in one hand. His human hand became longer, dark hairs sprouting from
the skin, his fingernails lengthening into claws. He continued to growl.

The sound got under her
skin, making her itch to run or fight or do something. Anything. Her nipples
pinched to painful hardness under her shirt, and a deep throbbing began between
her legs. She let out a sharp exhalation. A man was injured, she didn’t
understand what was going on, but suddenly she was horny as hell. She
visualized Dash’s clawed hand dragging down her back, and shuddered with
pleasure.

She closed her eyes,
caught up in a fever dream, imagining him plunging deep between her legs, hard,
hot, and heavy.

An eerie howl forced its
way into her fantasy. Her eyes flicked open. Dash had his mouth wide open, and
that uncanny sound issued forth from him. He continued to hold Michael’s arm in
one hand.

The howl titillated her
senses further, raising every hair on her body to erect attention. She swayed,
almost writhing, enjoying the way it rubbed her thighs together against their
hot, soaked juncture.

She couldn’t help it. She moaned.

Dash turned his head
sharply, and met her gaze. He must have seen her naked lust for him. His eyes
were hot, but he continued to howl, as he shook his head in the smallest of
gestures.

Oh God, the guards were
still in here. And Michael. Their presence brought her sharply back to earth. Still
aroused, Annie was frustrated, knowing she couldn’t tear her clothes off with
an audience.

She closed her mouth, fighting
the urge to drag Dash away from Michael and into the nearest bedroom.

As she did so, Michael shuddered
uncontrollably. The guards too, shook, and one of them doubled over, clutching
at his stomach. Dash stood motionless, and the howling ended.

“What did you do?” Her
voice came out nearly unrecognizable, husky, erotic, heavy with her need for
him.

“I called his wolf.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Watch,” he said. Michael’s
shudders became convulsions, and his body deformed beneath his clothes, growing
and changing. His shirt buttons popped off, revealing a sprouting mat of hair. His
face elongated, teeth growing, eyes moving, and he let out a scream as the
broken tooth popped out of his head and pinged to the floor, replaced by a
sharp wolf incisor.

Flesh and fur and teeth
and claws rolled over one another in spasms until a dark grey wolf lay on the
couch where Michael had been a few minutes earlier. This was much different
from Dash’s change, or even the changes she’d seen in the courtyard under the
moon. It looked like it hurt.

The wolf—Michael—let
out a whine. While he was in better condition than he’d been as a human, his
long snout showed grazes and cuts.

 
Dash stared him down. After a few seconds,
the wolf closed its eyes and shuddered and changed once again.

“Why is he changing back?”
she asked, confused.

“The change heals, but I
can’t get the information I need from him when he’s in that form.”

“You can’t communicate in
wolf form?”

“We can, but it’s not telepathy.
I need higher order language.” His tone and his stare, still directed at
Michael, stopped her from asking more questions.

The door creaked open
behind her, and she spun around to see Joel, the dark-haired man she’d met when
they first arrived. He wore another tailored dark suit, his hair slicked back,
his shoes polished. This time, however, his forehead was creased with worry
lines.

“Sorry to surprise you,”
he said. “Gaelan showed me in.”

“Joel,” Dash said,
continuing to watch Michael thrash on the couch. “He’s almost ready. I’m glad
you’re here.”

Who was Joel, and what was
his role in the packs? Annie added it to the list of questions she had for
Dash.

Michael finally regained
his human form, groaned, shuddered, and lay back on the couch. His clothes were
shredded and ruined, as well as covered in blood from his injuries. Injuries,
she saw now, that were largely healed. A thin red line marked the place where
his forehead had previously been a red, bloody mess.

“Need a drink?” Dash said.
“Something to eat?”

Michael nodded, and Dash
gestured to one of the guards.

Annie stood quiet,
waiting, watching, even though every muscle longed for action of some kind. She
was wrung out, emptied, after the surge of sexual heat that had consumed her
minutes ago. She was grateful Joel hadn’t been present for that, because she had
a feeling he missed little, and she would have been even more embarrassed.

“Michael,” Dash said, “Who
did this?”

The man pushed himself up
to a sitting position and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t see or smell
them?”

“Rosa went out without me.”
He looked up, shook his head, groaned again. “After all these years, you think
she’d know better, but she sometimes wants to be alone. She was supposed to be
taking a nap. I went into her room to check on her and she was gone.”

Annie folded her arms to
stop her hand from going to her mouth. The Oracle might have been an old woman,
but she could only imagine how awful she would feel had Jack been the one to go
missing when she thought him safely asleep.

“How did you end up in the
garden?” Dash’s voice was low, focused.

“I went to look for her. She’s
obsessed with the greenhouses here. Seemed a natural place to start. When I got
down there...” He rubbed one hand across his eyes. “I’ll never forget what I
found. Why did she go off without me?”

“What happened?”

Michael’s brows lowered,
and he got a far away look. “I heard something behind me. A footstep. Stealthy.
But I couldn’t smell anyone. I heard the door snap shut, so I ran that way. And
then...I woke up here.”

“You don’t remember?” Dash’s
low voice held an edge. Annie glanced at him. His expression was neutral. The
man had quite a poker face.

Michael closed his eyes,
shook his head. “Not a thing.”

Joel broke in with, “You
didn’t scent them at all?”

“No.”

“And you saw nothing?”

“Not that I remember.” Michael
let out a long frustrated sigh. “Who would do this? What possible reason could
they have to hurt her?”

“That,” Joel said, looking
at Dash, “Is what we’re going to find out. Dash, may we speak?”

Privately
went unsaid. Annie ground her teeth. She
wanted to know what was going on. Would they be safe? And how would she now
find a way to break the curse?

Dash nodded. “Of course.”

He turned to face Annie. She
waited for him to say something, but instead he took her elbow and guided her to
the kitchen. She’d get to hear what they had to say. Although she didn’t feel
happy, exactly, given the situation, but knowing Dash wanted her to come made
her feel better, somehow. Included.

Joel stepped in behind
them and carefully closed the door. They all sat around the wooden kitchen table.
Silence fell. Annie folded her hands in her lap and waited.

“What do you think?” Joel
said.

“The whole thing stinks of
magic.” Dash wrinkled his nose like he’d smelled a long-dead deer.

“That’s assuming a lot. It
wouldn’t take magic to kill an old woman on her own, or to bash Michael’s skull
in with a shovel.” Joel shrugged. “Could have been anyone.”

“No, I mean the
greenhouse, the garden. There’s a strong stink of magic out there.”

“You can smell it?” Joel
raised an eyebrow. “Well, well. Your alpha powers are blossoming before my
eyes.” He paused, regarded the ceiling. “Can you tell whose magic, from the
scent?”

Annie stayed quiet,
fascinated by the idea that magic had a scent. What other so-called “alpha
powers” Dash might have? He could change fast, call wolves, and smell magic. Would
Jack inherit these powers?

Dash shook his head. “I
didn’t recognize the scent.”

She couldn’t restrain
herself any longer. If Annie was good at one thing, it was deduction, and she’d
figure this out if it killed her. “There are three questions we have to answer.”
She counted them off on her fingers. “One. Means. Who would have been strong
enough to do this? Killing the Oracle wouldn’t have been hard, but Michael’s a
big man.”

Joel’s attention was on
her now, his near-black eyes focused sharply on her face. “Go on.”

“Two. Motive. Who would
have wanted to hurt her? I don’t know much about your society, but it seems to
me that she was in a revered position. Killing her has to be some kind of a
taboo, doesn’t it?”

“You’re right,” Dash said.
“The Oracle is one of the greatest assets of the packs. Killing her hurts
everyone here.”

“Someone put their own
needs above the needs of the packs,” she continued. “That points to some pretty
strong and specific reason why she was killed.” Annie paused, gathering her
thoughts. “Let’s come back to that. The third thing is opportunity. Who cannot
account for their whereabouts at the time she was killed? We can ask everyone
to tell us where they were, and with who.”

“That won’t be popular,”
Dash said. “Political discussions and assignations are going on all over the
ranch.”

She shrugged. “Murder is
more important. Besides, aren’t you king, or something? Can’t you make them do
what you want?”

“He’s not Lycaon yet,”
Joel said. “Two more days until his confirmation. We have to get through two
more days. And a majority of wolves must agree.”

“Are there any other
candidates?”

“No,” Dash said. “And,
before you ask, yes, one of the other packs could put up a candidate. But it’s
not usually done. If the former leader has a strong alpha son, he inherits as
long as the joint Packs approve.”

Annie’s mind ticked over. “Could
that be the motivation? To undermine you as leader?”

Joel smiled. “I like how
you think. It’s a definite possibility.”

“I think,” Dash said
slowly, “that it’s more likely she was killed to stop her from speaking. Knowledge
is the Oracle’s power. If she knew something that someone didn’t want her to
tell...”

Jack.
Breaking the curse.
Dash
caught her gaze, his eyes dark, but something in them made her stop. “I wonder
what she could have known,” she temporized, instead.