Page 94 of Scapegoat

“No.” I wanted to agree with him, go along with his theory, because it’d stop the aching in my heart that had started up the moment she walked out of our bedroom. “Kai’s not like that. She means what she says.”

Which meant we had to find something else to do while she was out. I grabbed my phone and tapped out a message.

Love you. No reply to that, but I didn’t want her to text if she was driving. Anything feels weird, come home.

And that was it, all I could do without crushing the love right out of Kai. I walked downstairs with my brothers and Dad looked at the three of us and started grinning.

“Look at you soppy sods. You’re like a pack of lost puppies.”

“Fuck off, Dad,” Jayden mumbled.

“C’mon, gimme a hand in the garden. You know your mother. Every weekend is a backyard blitz, so if we get it done early, you’ll have all the free time in the world when your mate gets home.”

There’s something to be said for physical work. Humans seemed to prioritise office work much more highly, hence why we were able to make a killing as shearers: there just weren’t enough younger kids going into the job. But… I couldn’t imagine being locked up in a climate-controlled box, pushing papers around all day. Dad put us to work, pushing us hard, sensing we needed the distraction. Mum beamed as we tackled jobs the two of them had been putting off, trimming unruly hedges back, clearing weeds, putting together a new raised garden bed. But when we got to the rear of the back garden all hell broke loose.

“We must have had some foxes making their way in, though I’ll be buggered if I know why,” Dad said, standing near the back fence and scratching his head. “We don’t have chooks.”

We were all shirtless and dripping with sweat, covered in dirt and leaves. But as we looked along the fence, we saw something had gnawed a hole in it.

But that wasn’t all.

I caught a faint scent on the breeze, frowning because it didn’t make sense. I stepped closer, pushing aside the hydrangeas to look more clearly at the hole. Couldn’t have been a fox. I held out a hand, measuring the distance between the bite marks. The jaw of whatever this was, it was far bigger. A dog maybe or…

A wolf.

I jerked my head up, looking for my brothers, but they were already close. Jayden’s eyes burned silver as he squatted down beside me, coming to the same conclusion, though it was Atlas that got our attention. He dug around in the bushes, searching, searching, his wolf pushing to the surface until he found what he had scented.

“What the hell is that?” Dad asked, coming closer but none of us could answer. It was a filthy length of fabric, stained and dirty. But the marks weren’t a recent thing. As we all peered at it, we could see that dirt and grime had built up over time, as if the piece of fabric had been left out in the weather for some time.

But that didn’t explain the scent.

Kai, that’s what we got, the rose perfume rich and much more intense than her usual more muted scent. My fangs snapped down and my cock lurched in my shorts.

“What’s tha…?” Mum had joined us, wondering why we were all clustered at the bottom of the garden, but when she saw the piece of fabric, her eyes flashed silver. “That’s from one of my old sheet sets,” she said with a frown. “How the hell did that get there?”

Chapter 54

My phone buzzed as I pulled into Granville, but I just glanced at it as it sat on the passenger side seat and then focussed back on the road. The radio was playing just the right music, and I’d rolled down the windows to feel the wind in my hair, because I was feeling good.

I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed Jayden to make that statement in the town square. The way people reacted afterwards? No more conversations about Anna being my guys’ mate. No more people ignoring me. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to talk to me about my sister, my mum and my dad, but I just brushed them off. They hadn’t asked the right questions before, so I wasn’t about to start answering them now. But people knew.

Not all of it, obviously, and from what I’d heard, the alphas were desperately trying to manage the situation. People, of course, wanted to know if this was the reason why Mum was kicked out of the pack. And then came the more awkward questions. How long had they known about this? What had they done about the situation? And what the hell was Mum trying that day? But I drove away from all of it with a smile.

I was meeting Jamie for lunch. I’d have something healthy and then a massive sundae, probably making myself sick, but it’d be worth it. The phone buzzed again and again, but I just shook my head as I pulled into the truck stop and shoved it into my pocket. As I strode into Melva’s, I caught sight of Jamie’s massive truck around the back where the extended car parks were and smiled.

“How ya doing, kid?” Jamie strode towards me, holding her arms out and I hugged her hard, but not too hard. She couldn’t take a full wolf hug, but this was good, so good. For a long while we just stood there, then I felt her hand rub up and down my back. “You OK?” She pulled back. “You said you had some news? Let’s take a seat.”

“There’s our girl!” Melva walked over with a smile. “So what can I get you two?”

We put in our orders and the other two women’s eyebrows shot up as they heard mine.

“Damn girl,” Jamie said. “Where you gonna put all of that?”

“As if you aren’t the same?” Melva flicked a tea towel at Jamie. “Sitting on your arse all day and eating junk food at every pit stop and still a skinny minnie. I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“So what the hell is going on?” Jamie leaned in and spoke in a low hiss. “Last time I saw you, you were covered in blood and now…” She waved her hand around. “You’ve got this glow.”

“Glow?” I touched my cheeks with my fingertips and they felt a little clammy. We weren’t into summer yet, but I’d felt a little too hot on the drive over. That’s why I’d rolled the window down, needing the blast of cold air. “I dunno about any glow, but…”

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