Page 69 of The Wolfing Hour
Miles stood a few feet away, in my peripheral. He was holding a gun, aiming it at my head.
“Oh, please,” I said. “If I’d intended to attack, you’d already be down. Put that away before someone sees you. What’s with you fools? It’s as if you’ve never had to hide who you are from humans. Bunch of doofuses.”
Miles lowered the weapon but kept it in his hand at his side. He seemed flustered by my lack of fear.
“Where’s Mason Hartman?”
“How the heck should I know?” I snapped. “Ask Alpha Pallás. He’s Mason’s best pal.”
“Hartman hasn’t been heard from in over forty-eight hours.” Eyes as cold and blue as the center of a glacier glared at me. “He was to have checked in with the,” he cleared his throat, “withme, first thing yesterday morning.”
“Geez, you can say you’re with the Org. I already know about you people.” I gave him a deadpan look. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’d think Mason would be with me. We’re not exactly sipping mimosas at Sunday brunch together.”
“You know who we are and why we’re here.” He eyed me with blatant suspicion. “Who else would want to harm him?”
“Probably everyone he’s ever come across in his life up to this point. Mason isn’t the most charming person in the world. He’s an asshole. In fact, he’s such an asshole that he’d probably embrace the insult rather than be offended by it.”
“No.You’rethe obvious culprit. He was preparing to bringyouin.”
I thought it over. Shrugged. “I mean, that’s honestly a pretty good reason for me to have offed the guy, and if he’d tried anything like that, I might have. That doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t seen him in days. Not since he begged me not to kill his alpha leader.”
Miles’s smooth forehead creased. I couldn’t figure out the guy’s age. He could’ve been in his late twenties or mid-forties. His skin was like an unfolded sheet of printer paper—almost alien in its smooth paleness.
“You didn’t kill the alpha leader.” He said this as if trying to convince himself that the words were true. I recalled what Bronwyn had said about him being a truthseeker, and figured he was reading my honesty the way a telepath might read my thoughts.
“A decision I regret daily,” I muttered, before continuing aloud, “Mason asked me not to. He had compelling reasons.”
“Youlistenedto him?”
“Duh. Keep up, Miles. See, logically, I knew Floyd needed to die, but Mason spoke to my heart by invoking the wellbeing of the man I love, which caused what I think of as a rude jolt of sentimentality directly into my soul. My brain was no match for my heart and soul, and I ended up letting the asshole go.” I sighed. “Has that ever happened to you? The second guessing is brutal, isn’t it?”
“No, that’s not correct. Your kind doesn’t respond to reason. You are demon.”
“Only on my father’s side,” I said. “Mom’s people are elemental witches. Earth witches. We’re pretty down-to-earth people, pun intended.”
Miles wore the expression of a man with a mouth full of questions he didn’t want the answers to. “This makes no sense.”
“Look, I’ve got an interesting and somewhat scary ancestry—even I’m not sure how scary. I’ve only recently found out about some of it.” I shrugged and stared down at the wolf splayed on the ground at my feet. “But mostly, I’m just Betty.”
Chapter
Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said dully.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
The two wolves came out from behind the stairs leading to Ronan’s place where they’d been hiding. They were still in wolf form, and their gazes were glassy and fixed.
Zombie wolves. Just what I needed to top off this hellish day.
“Your wolves are not well.” I indicated the one closest to me with a nod. “I’m going to be straight with you—I’m irrationally afraid of zombies, so don’t be surprised if I lash out at them.”
This seemed to snap Miles out of whatever self-inflicted spell he’d been under. “What are you talking about?”
The wolves padded to the foot of the stairs and turned their snouts toward Ronan’s apartment door, tongues lolling. Unblinking.
