Anger and fear flashed across her face, and she glared at me. “He’s dead.”
My chest tightened as the forest spun and the nightmare coiled around me. “What? Billy was mine.” My voice was icy and rough, almost unrecognizable.
Disappointment and hatred cut across Savannah’s face. “He attacked me. I pushed him, and he stumbled over the ledge.”
“Where?” I growled, barely able to control the emotions whirling inside of me. He couldn’t be dead. She must have been mistaken.
Savannah led us through the woods. Sam didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.
My senses had been so consumed by Savannah, I hadn’t scented Billy. But now that I’d reined myself in, it was clear as day. His scent was everywhere and all over her. I would have killed him myself for touching her, but that wasn’t the point.
Finally, after a few minutes of walking, Savannah stopped at the edge of a cliff. “Down there.”
I stepped around her up to the edge. Down below, Billy’s body gently bobbed against the rocks. It was true. A wave of emotions erupted over me—sorrow, anger, regret. Guilt.
Sam appeared at my side. “He tripped, huh?” She arched her brow at Savannah.
Savannah’s lips trembled, and she rubbed her arms. “Yup.”
A lie.
We could both smell it. I scowled and dropped over the ledge. Billy’s eyes were still open, staring at the sky. I knelt and closed them. Then I closed my own and let the grief bore into me.
The last thread tying me to my sister was dead. The person who remembered her best. The person who’d loved her so much, he was willing to abandon everything he believed for justice. Vengeance.
Her true mate, bound together in life and death.
I prayed to the moon mother that I would never have a bond like that, one so fierce that it could drive me to betray my pack, my kin. I was the alpha, and I couldn’t risk being bound by love or desire or anything else.
I gave myself sixty heartbeats to dwell in that darkness. Then I opened my eyes and stood. I would grieve for Billy and my sister later, but for now, I needed to lead. I needed to set things right.
I looked up at Savannah, who met my eyes. In that moment, I knew for certain that she was not as she seemed.
When I’d met her, she’d been an unassuming waitress who had run down a werewolf on the road. She’d had no idea magic was real. Yet…she’d hunted werewolves and demons, rescued Sam and Madison, and now, somehow, she’d managed to take out the third strongest member of my pack. On her own.
It shouldn’t have been possible.
What the hell was she? A beautiful, perilous mystery—that much was certain.
My wolf pitched in my chest, desiring to run to her. But the heat between us had been wrong, a tragic slip. I was the alpha. I couldn’t let my carnal needs cloud my judgement. I had to be stronger. She was a LaSalle, and the woman who’d killed my brother-in-law. It had been self-defense, but she’d taken justice and answers from me. I had loved him once.
I couldn’t let myself forget any of that.
Sam watched me from above. “I’m sorry, Jaxson.”
My heart ached with regret and failure, but I buried my emotions. “Billy betrayed the pack. He signed his own death warrant.”
She nodded. “There’s something more you need to see back at the cabin.”
I scooped Billy’s body up, then froze. Several claw marks cut through his chest. He must have been wounded in the fight earlier. But he hadn’t healed, which was…impossible.
Suspicion settled over me. I could practically taste Savannah’s apprehension, the worry she’d tightly wound around the secret she was concealing.
I tossed Billy over my shoulder and met Savannah’s blank, emotionless stare.
She was hiding something, and I was going to unravel it.
Savannah