Page 97 of Scapegoat

“A hole in the garden fence made by a wolf,” I said in a deadly flat tone. “A piece of the sheets that Abigail used to put Kai’s scent on Anna. Weird prank calls where they don’t say anything, just hang up?”

“We should have seen this coming.” Xavier looked stricken right then, like he did every time he missed something. Not sure where he got the idea he was supposed to be Superman, but here we were. “It’s Abigail. It’s gotta be Abigail.”

I held up the keys, because I was already two steps ahead of him.

“I’ll come with you, boys,” Dad said, but I shook my head.

“Look for Greg.”

“Why would—?” Mum said with a frown.

“Find Anna. Find anyone in this town who Abigail might give a shit about,” I ordered.

“What about Kai’s dad?” my father said.

Silence stretched on for several seconds, because while Abigail had a connection to him, it was not a positive one. She’d always hated her fated mate, as was made perfectly clear when she somehow seduced Greg.

“Find him too. Alert the alphas.”

Jayden made a rude noise.

“If they can do anything about this.” My brother sported the same scathing expression he used whenever we talked about this town and all the shit in it. “How’d Abigail pull this shit in the first place? She’s just a beta.”

“Is she?” Women weren’t alphas as a rule. Feminism hadn’t really come to wolf shifter communities in the way it had human ones, because so few women had the required abilities. They were almost always betas or omegas, but… “Let’s find out.”

I didn’t want my hunch to be right, but somehow this felt inevitable. Abigail had torn through so many lives and she wouldn’t stop on her own. My fingers tightened around the key ring as I strode outside and it took conscious effort not to squash the keys into a ball of soft metal.

“Let me drive,” Jay said, appearing at my shoulder. “I can get us there faster.”

“I’ll break land speeds to get to Kai,” I told him flatly and that had him stepping away. “Maybe she’s in the toilet. Maybe her phone’s on silent. It doesn’t matter; I won’t stop for anything, not even human police, to find her.”

“She’s going to be sitting in a booth feeding her face with Jamie.” I wasn’t sure who Xavier was trying to convince, him or us. “She’ll be pissed with us—”

“Get in and find out, or stay here,” I snapped, jumping into Dad’s sedan.

The minute Jay and Xavier were in the car and the doors were shut I planted my foot, going roaring out the driveway and fishtailing it, the back of the car swinging out as we hit the road. I pushed the car harder when we got to an intersection, not even bothering to look as we ploughed through. People hit their horns and cursed us as we passed by, but all that fell away as we reached the main road out of town. Paddocks whizzed by, sheep and cattle just a blur as we drove.

“She’s not picking up,” Xavier cursed. “She’s not fucking picking up. I told her to take us with her. We were supposed to protect her.”

“We still will.”

I dunno why I was so fucking calm. I’d reached a state of panic so pure I couldn’t feel a thing, except one thing: get Kai, find Kai, protect Kai. So that’s what I focused on. The engine hummed and the car tore forward, eating up the miles between the towns.

But whatever composure I’d held onto, it broke the moment we got to the truck stop. People were cued up out the front, waiting to be served, but Melva wasn’t behind the counter, she was sitting at the table in the kitchen.

“Fluffy took her…” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks, the woman’s mind half broken by another wolf shifter. “Fluffy took her…”

And I was about to break it further. I yanked off my t-shirt and shoved down my shorts before taking fur, the wolf’s nose ten times more sensitive than my human one. I sniffed around, detecting tantalising food smells, metal, dish soap and Kai. The floral scent still hung in the air. I sucked that in, selfishly wanting to gulp in every bit, but as I did, I caught the nuances. Fear, anger, frustration, it turned that rose scent sour, but along with that was a strange chemical base note.

“Don’t eat that cake…” The back doors were shoved open and Jamie staggered in, clutching at her arm. A great raking slash cut her from cheek to chin, and blood seeped out under her hand from the wound on her arm. “Is Kai’s mother a fucking bitch with long dark hair and a face like a smacked arse?”

“Shit,” Xavier said, rushing over, grabbing a tea towel to wind tight around Jamie’s bleeding arm. Someone had slashed into her with their claws extended.

“Sounds about right,” Jayden said stepping forward.

I came closer, sniffing her boots, jeans and then her hand as she stared at me, fighting to reconcile the big grey wolf in front of her with the man she knew. I let out a low chuff, communicating with my brothers what I’d scented.

Kai always smelled like roses. Sometimes sweet, sometimes tart, sometimes heady. But Abigail? She smelled woody, which was usually a masculine scent, but hers was the dank stink of rotting wood, the smell of old bark peeled back to reveal a cluster of insects. She was the smell of wood borers reducing a log down to saw dust and Jamie stank of that scent.

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