Page 57 of Way of the Wolf

“I know. Relax. I found your box, but she was with me at the time, so I couldn’t take it.”

The wolf case. Of course. Duncan had tried to get me to leave him alone with it.

“Why couldn’t you search the apartment when she wasn’t there?” Chad asked.

“She’s there a lot. She works here, you know.”

“No shit, but you’re supposed to be an expert at your job.”

“I’m an expert at finding things, not breaking into people’s apartments and stealing them.”

“It’smyartifact. It’s not stealing.”

I was so angry that I almost didn’t have room to allow confusion into my mangled mix of emotions. But my brain did stutter over that line. Where would Chad have gotten a case made by druids? And why would he have even wanted it?

“It’s taking what’s rightfully mine,” Chad continued, “thatshekept me from getting when I went back for it.”

“You didn’t mention where you got it.”

I had little doubt that Chad had stolen it and that it wasn’t truly his, as he claimed. What right could he have to a druidic artifact?

“That’s none of your business. I’m only paying you to retrieve it.”

“I did go back to her apartment when she was gone,” Duncan said, “but she’d moved it somewhere. I haven’t sensed it since we were alone together.”

“What do you meanalone together? You’d better not be screwing her.”

“Why do you care? You left her, right?”

“She’s still my wife, you bastard.”

I most certainly wasnot. Just because he’d refused to sign the divorce papers didn’t mean we were still married in the state of Washington.

“That’s not what she said.”

“Don’t listen to what she says,” Chad snapped. “She’s not what she pretends to be.”

I wished that weren’t true.

“Were you the one to put the cameras in her bedroom?” Duncan asked. “To keep an eye on your box? Or onher?”

Chad didn’t answer the question. Instead, voice so low I barely caught it, he said, “I can’t believe she’s turning wolf.Now. All those years, I wanted to see that. I wanted…”

“To sleep with that?” Duncan asked.

“Hell, yeah, I wanted to see the wolf come out. I could alwaysfeelher magic, like she was part animal, strong and sexy as hell. Why do you think I kept coming back all those years? I never wanted to be married and chained to a woman.”

“Didn’t you have children with her?”

“Not intentionally. That washerwish.”

I ground my teeth at the lie. We’d agreed to have children. He’d said he wanted them too. He’d actually beenaroundback in the early years of our marriage.

The revisionist history, and listening to them talk about me, made me seethe. I wanted so badly to leap into the van and strangle Duncan. Even more, I wanted to strangle Chad, but he probably wasn’t in the country. He could be calling from his girlfriend’syacht. I hoped the same pirates who’d shot Duncan found Chad and filled him with lead.

As the cool rain fell, pattering on my head and running down my flushed cheeks, it crossed my mind to wonder if they’d met on some dock in an exotic locale. World travelers cavorting around and doing who knew what.

“Just get the damn artifact,” Chad said. “I’ve been searching a long time for what’s inside.”

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