The Wolf Marshal's Pack (U.S. Marshal Shifters 3)

“I’m guessing she’s who you didn’t want to tell me about before. The person I shouldn’t bother just because she knew Eli.”

“Yeah. And here you are bothering her.”

“Manners,” Mel said, swatting him on the arm.

“Sorry.” He raised his chin, facing them down defiantly. “But I was right. Eli would never come to Mel for that kind of help. He knows he can’t boss her around.”

“He couldn’t come here, but you could.” Colby understood why Luke had wanted to keep Mel out of the fray. “It’s good to have friends. They’re not part of Eli’s plan, but it looks like they’re part of yours.”

For a second, he thought Luke was going to give him another one of those classically teenaged eyerolls, but it seemed like the kid thought better of it. He stood up a little straighter. It was suddenly possible to see the man he’d grow up to be.

“Yeah,” he said. “They are.”

At least he had some solid ground underneath him. Colby still didn’t know how he would take the news about his cousin. No matter how rough the relationship was, family connections were hard to shake.

He tried to find the right words.

Luke must have seen him looking for them. He cut Colby off.

“I already know West is dead. I felt it.”

It startled him. He’d been lucky enough to have never had one of his Army buddy packmates die overseas, and those bonds had faded when they’d returned home and scattered across the States; he’d been too focused on taking care of his dad to try to maintain them.

He had felt it when his dad had died, of course. But he thought he would have felt that even if he’d been only and purely human.

“I’m sorry,” Colby said. “All I wanted was to take him in.”

“I know.” Luke’s eyes looked a little watery, but he wrapped his arms around himself and carried on. “He wasn’t a good guy. The nicest thing I remember him doing was teaching me how to shoplift so I could get Ding-Dongs and sodas and stuff. Eli just wanted us to eat whatever we could kill.”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and took a deep breath.

“Mel said you’re still looking for Eli.”

“He came after us last night,” Aria said. “He and Weston crashed through my front door.”

Luke winced. “Is everybody else okay?”

Colby had already believed he was a good kid, but he thought even better of him for bothering to ask that.

“Yeah,” Colby said. “Everyone else is okay. But we have to find Eli.”

Mel said, “I was telling them about that woman Eli mentioned.”

Luke froze up then, just like he had before.

Back in the woods, the closest he’d been able to come to blurting out his cousin’s secret had been to say that it was rare for them to stay in one spot.

Now, with one more piece of the puzzle from Mel, Colby knew why they’d stuck around. But he still needed Luke to tell him where to look.

“Why do you need to know about her?” Luke finally said. “She never did anything. He never even talked to her. She’s not dating him or anything. He just stared at her like a creep, and one time he dropped a dead deer on her back porch.”

He almost felt Aria’s interest perk up at that. He noticed the change in her emotions even before he saw, from the corner of his eye, that she had involuntarily leaned forward, like she was hanging on every word. Her eyes were even brighter than before.

Something Luke had said had triggered some kind of realization for her.

Well, it hadn’t for him. He was still stuck poking around.

“We don’t think she did anything. We’re worried he might hurt her.” He took a gamble. “Eli talked about wanting to turn her, didn’t he?”