Page 29 of His Fate

And since she has not come up in conversation, my Josephine must not have been born until well after Hank moved here and has never shown obvious signs of favoring her dragon genetics.

Either that or something has prevented them from making some sort of connection.

"Hank was my partner." Will turns back to me. "We worked together from the time he moved here back in the late forties just after the war. Of course it was hard to explain away our lack of aging and what not but he managed to use his glamour to keep us on the force, still does so we can all keep doing what we do."

"So he still possesses the ability?" Now I'm most definitely interested.

Will nods. "Hank's mind ain't the problem, it's his body." He reaches down and lays the briefcase flat, then pops it open and removes a dagger sealed up in a clear evidence bag. "Whatever this was dipped in is what paralyzed Hank, kept his dragon dormant and it's what killed all those shifters twenty years ago."

My blood chills as he hands me the dagger. The handle is elaborate silver, the metal forged to look like the razor sharp talon of a dragon, it's pointed claw touches the hilt of the blade, arches into it along the edge that's been sharpened razor thin and deadly. There is a giant polished stone on the top of the handle, a clan crest branded into it and I don't even have to look at them to know my brothers are thinking the same thing I am.

Cyril.

"May I?" Henrich asks Will. "If it would be alright and won't be an issue in terms of chain of command or tampering with evidence, I'd like to examine this."

Will nods and produces a second one and hands that over too. "Neither have been taken from those bags since Hank found the first and I pulled the second from his back."

"Why exactly did you bring us here, chief? It's lovely to get to know more of our kind in the area but I am not king to any of your specific kind." I hand the daggers to Henrich. "Assuming of course Kady made you aware of our presence the first time I went into her shop."

He nods. "Couple reasons, I guess. You four are the first shifters to move to Ashland in over twenty years and the way you look, no offense, coupled with the fact that you went to Kady's and Bill's then ordered from Ron, well yeah, we wanted to reach out and welcome you."

"But?"

"But we also wanted to warn you."

Andrej tenses, grips the arms of his lawn chair so hard I can hear the metal twist. I hold out my arm and still him, though I can feel him stare lasers into the side of my head.

"Excuse my brother. We left a rather bad situation in our homeland and just received disheartening news. We have been on high alert ever since."

Will nods. "Good. I didn't mean to sound threatening but I need you to understand that you are most likely in danger."

I lift a brow. "As heir to my father's throne and now king of a broken kingdom I am always in danger."

"Yeah well, then you're in a touch more since moving to Ashland." He blows out a breath and slumps back in his chair. "Those murders twenty years ago? They were all shifters but not just any shifters. They were all alphas or lunas, kings and their queens. Whoever it was killing those poor people was specifically targeting heads of clans and packs, prides and any other type of group that was around. All twenty-seven victims were old, strong, and very powerful." He glances at Harold who nods. "Our father, mother, and our mates were four of the victims."

Several others nod and I blink. "All of you are children of rulers?"

Will nods.

Although I feel a bit less alone in my grief and sudden position of power, my heart aches for these people.

"We've been cautious. Able to fly under the radar some. I have a feeling something about what happened to Hank forced the murderer to stop what he was doing but with the four of you making yourselves a little more known around town, well, I wanted you to have a heads up."

"It is appreciated, chief, but may I ask, do you have reason to believe the perpetrator is still in Ashland?"

"I had no reason to believe that he is or isn't here until four months ago."

"What happened four months ago?"

Josh Adler clears his throat. "My mate… my Jesse was murdered the same way her father was all those years ago."

My heart squeezes as I look at him, clearly broken but vengeful which is probably the only reason he hasn't succumbed to the madness one does when their mate is taken from them.

All shifters have one true mate, mate for life and live for hundreds, even thousands of years without aging, basically becoming immortal with their mate by their side.

We are completed by our mate, therefore almost untouchable. And since man-made weapons and human diseases do not affect us along with the number of shifter diseases being so minute, it is supposed to be a long and happy life with the one you were born to love.

Even human mates take on certain shifter qualities, such as long life and relatively unbreakable physical forms but when one loses a mate, no matter how rare, the other generally falls into a madness that kills you from the inside out. It is why most mated couples die at the same time—one simply cannot exist without the other once mated.

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