Page 51 of Bitter Discord

Arlo couldn’t have done this. There’s just no way. He’s a teenage boy.

“I know all that, which is why the entire pack is still looking for him. I came back to the house to call you. I have some solid reasons for wanting to drive up and explain. We both know they’re going to have a lot of questions about Arlo and what he might have as motivation to do this. I am the only person who can handle those questions honestly. I’m his Alpha. My job isn’t only physically protecting the pack or doing the leg work. It’s advocating for those who need me.”

“I can advocate for him,” I growled. “I promised the pack I would be an ally and a protector. I can be his advocate with the other werecats.”

“What classes does he take in school? How are his grades? Has he ever been hunting? Does he have a lot of experience with firearms? Is he known for acting out?”

Every question hammered another nail in my proverbial coffin. They were valid questions to determine if a teenager was capable of something violent, and I didn’t know the answer to any of them. I knew Arlo from seeing him with Carey, doing homework together. I knew he could be a little protective of Benjamin, the quieter of the two boys, and he was polite in the car when I took them to school, but I never sat down and got to know Arlo on a deeper level.

I barely knew him, and Heath’s point was made rather effectively.

“Heath…”

“I’ll bring Landon, no one else. It would be unreasonable for me to go alone. Teagan is fretting over Arlo, but Ranger and Shamus are both clear-headed enough to maintain search efforts. Fenris is already going stir crazy. If you want, I’ll let you question every member of the pack about Arlo.”

“I think Zuri and I need to comb over Teagan’s property and see if it matches any of the strangeness we saw at the park here in Dallas.”

“Then we’ll make that happen,” Heath promised.

“Can Arlo shoot?” I asked softly.

“Every member of the pack can hit a target at a hundred yards,” he answered. “Teagan takes the boys hunting multiple times every season. Young werewolves need experience with killing in both forms. I’ll call you when Landon and I get close. I love you. We’ll figure this out.”

“I love you, too,” I said, feeling battered. He hung up, and I was left in the silence.

19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Iwent downstairs slowly, knowing I was about to put a young man’s life in danger. I couldn’t believe he would do it, but the circumstances didn’t look good. Arlo could have wandered the city until he found an easy mark and taken the shot from a distance. He would have gotten lucky that no one reported hearing the gunshots.

Would he call the BSA? It just doesn’t make sense. Unless someone else found the body. Witches smell human when they don’t use magic. A local witch could have stumbled on the body and reported it. They’re human, so they don’t trigger my territory magic until they try something.

Nothing felt right, but I had to tell the werecats what I had learned and who was coming to talk to them. When I entered the basement, Zuri took one look at me, and her expression changed from curious to scared.

“Jacky, what did he say?”

“He’ll be here in a couple of hours,” I said flatly. “He tried to bring the pack together to verify everyone was accounted for and hadn’t left the territory.”

“I knew it was a fucking werewolf,” Lonan growled.

I held up a hand.

“One of the boys is missing,” I continued, giving Zuri what I was certain was a look of desperation. “He’s seventeen. Disappeared last night. His guardian doesn’t know where he went, and the pack has been trying to locate him. His trail goes cold, and for werewolves… that’s a difficult thing to pull off.”

“That’s… a problem,” Zuri said, standing up. “Anything else?”

“A gun is missing from the house,” I finished. “Heath is coming with his second to answer questions anyone here might have about the young man. I’m personally not of the mind that he did it, but he’s the only werewolf we can’t find and probably has the missing gun.”

“This is why you can’t trust werewolves. A boy thinks he can kill one of our kind and get away with it.” Lonan was pacing in the back of the room. “What’s the little shit’s name? Tell us, and we’ll find him for your fucking Alpha. He clearly can’t keep a handle on a child, so someone else needs to deal with this.”

“You’re not hunting the boy until you hear everything from Alpha Everson,” Zuri snarled.

I saw someone move and turned to keep my eye on Elissa as she tried to get to the door.

“Don’t,” I snarled. “You’ll give the pack a chance to find him.”

“Can you stop me?” she asked softly.

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