Page 31 of Curvy Quirky Omega

Gideon was found in his office at 0132 hours, face down in a pool of his own blood.

Nothing was missing from his office or his person other than his wedding ring.

The blood splatter at the scene implied the murder had been done calmly and dispassionately. There weren’t smears of blood on anything either. He’d simply lain there and waited to die.

A slice at the back of his knees brought him down, and then he was stabbed in each wrist, as if he’d been pinned to the floor.

Gideon was stabbed multiple times after that, including the back, which was the last wound he received before bleeding out.

Why would he lie there and take it without struggling?

It was difficult to tell exactly how they managed all that without him flailing around and the same ten-inch blade was used for each stab wound, but the one on his throat was two inches long at most.

The blade would have to go in and out multiple times, and since he was stabbed through the throat before he was stabbed in the back, he would have bled out and died before the coroner’s estimated time of death.

In my opinion, being stabbed in the back last felt like it was some sort of statement.

Blood for blood.

I opened my eyes and stared at the dark blue ceiling, deciding I should take another look at both autopsy reports because my gut was still telling me his death was a message.

Let me show you what it really means to be loyal to Valor.

Except no one from the Valor pack knew he was going to leave. Only Dane knew but he had no idea that Gideon had changed his mind after Melinda told him about the baby.

I doubted the Steele pack knew he planned to leave either.

We really needed to find that second phone. Or the key to his encrypted drive.

A knock on the door reminded me that Frankie would be here soon and then we could finally ask Melinda all the questions that would point us in the right direction.

“You can come in.” I studied the dark blue ceiling, trying to decide if I should paint constellations or flowers on it. Either way, I think I wanted to use gold leaf.

“I really like what you’ve done so far,” Cas murmured, appearing behind me like a ghost. He smiled and leaned down to kiss my forehead. “It’s going to look amazing when you’re done.”

My cheeks got hot just like they always did when he praised me. “We’ll see.”

“Either way, you’re going to need these in here.” He brought a paper bag out from behind his back and handed it to me. He was practically glowering now but I could feel his nervous excitement. “I don’t know what kind you prefer, so I got a few.”

I took the bag and pulled out five different kinds of mechanical pencils and two different sets of colored pencils with a brand-new sketchpad that was top of the line.

I had no idea what to say.

Studying one of the mechanical pencil sets, I realized I was feeling weirdly emotional about this. Maybe it was because it wasn’t just someone doing something nice for me, it was an alpha.

My alpha.

All my life…I convinced myself that this kind of thing would never happen to me.

I’d really and truly believed in everything my father had taught me, though it wasn’t hard when he’d been right every single day of my life until I met these two.

Because of that, I’d never allowed any possible opportunity to be proven wrong.

But this? This was the first time I’d ever let anyone other than Frankie close enough to do something like this and Cas had gotten it right on the first try.

“These aren’t easy to find,” I managed, hoping he wouldn’t say anything about how choked up I sounded.

I picked up the other pack of mechanical pencils and noticed this one had little cushions on them that was supposed to help with finger pain.

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