Now, the Executioner stared into the camera with that same emptiness in his expression. An emptiness that suggested he didn’t care whether I lived or died. He raised one eyebrow but didn’t bother speaking.

  Scarlet didn’t speak either, but not through boredom. I could still see her behind the Executioner, strapped down in what I hoped was just a chair rather than some sort of torture apparatus. There was blood dripping from both of her arms.

  In the silence that followed, the bloodletter followed my gaze and smiled. A blade was in his hand, I saw now. Something small but unbearably sharp. He pressed the sharp side against the skin of Scarlet’s forearm like an artist choosing his next brushstroke. A thin thread of red rose up in the blade’s wake.

  The cut must have been painful, but it was fear more than pain that impacted Scarlet. Her throat worked but no sound came out. Her chest heaved faster. The Executioner’s cut was no worse than a briar scratch she might get running four-footed, yet she was ready to wet her pants.

  Scarlet and I were enemies, but I hated this. And I was also curious. So I interrupted the torture with words. “How did you know Scarlet killed Kaito? The fire just happened.”

  I’d never heard the Executioner speak before, so I wasn’t ready for a quiet rasp as rough as a saw blade. “If this Kaito was killed within the last twelve hours,” he murmured, “you’ve found the wrong murderer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a stray fox to track down.”

  He turned back to Scarlet and she broke. Slamming her body back and forth, she fought against unyielding bindings. “No more! Please! Kaito is the stray fox! Kira took care of him! You heard her! He’s dead!”

  “Perhaps.” The Executioner placed his used blade on a silver tray and picked up something long and sharp and hooked at the end, something I didn’t want to look at too closely. “But you lied to your superiors. You disrupted the peace within Reed territory. Their alpha requested remuneration and you have nothing but your blood to pay with. You and I are not done.”

  They might not be done, but our video call apparently was. The app went dark, the connection lost.

  Chapter 16

  For five more minutes, my brain fired on all cylinders. There was nothing I could do about Scarlet and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to given the fact she was a cold-blooded murderer. But Kaito....

  At my recommendation, Thom redialed the main Lawkeeper’s number to report the fire. That way, human officials would be drawn away from the investigative aftermath, leaving it in shifter hands.

  In our hands.

  I pushed myself up on shaky arms so I could peer out the window at the house in question, or what was left of it. Flames had been quenched but the structure tilted precariously, burnt-over studs jutting out like broken bones. Smoke obscured the roof line I’d crawled beneath, but what I could see was as crooked as a snapped backbone. Without Thom, I never would have made it out alive.

  And Kaito? I wasn’t ready to admit the truth, but I could see Thom’s point now.

  Which meant, if I couldn’t save my grandmother’s ex-honor-guard member, my oath to his brother required a different sort of focus. Finding the party responsible. Making sure a similar murder never happened again.

  “The Reeds might have tracked down Kaito before we did,” I murmured.

  Thom’s jaw clenched as he followed my gaze. “Maybe.”

  Before he could elaborate on the source of the doubt in his voice, Bertrand’s car was pulling up beside ours and the sugar high of star-ball energy was fading from my flesh as quickly as it had consumed me. Thom had been right about shifting—the effort had dealt with both my burns and lung damage. But healing always came with a price tag. Exhaustion grabbed me hard and yanked me under, my head drifting down to rest against Thom’s broad chest even as Bertrand stalked over to the window closest to Thom.

  “Orders?”

  Thom’s reply vibrated through my skin. “Jump the car and take her home.”

  I tried to rise and speak, but my body was having none of it. Neither was Thom. His arm rose to drape across my shoulders, and I accepted the invitation to snuggle in closer. Was half asleep when Bertrand replied.

  “You don’t want to drive her yourself?”

  A subtle jolting of my pillow suggested Thom was shaking his head in negation. “I need to pin down alibis.”

  Bertrand asked the question I wanted an answer to. “Alibis?”

  “Our pack knew where Kaito was tonight.”

  Our pack? My eyebrows drew together just a little, the motion all I could tease out of my somnolent body. Surely Thom didn’t think any of the wolves who’d acted so much like family around the dinner table tonight could have murdered Kaito?

  I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell Thom to search in a different direction. But by the time I blinked my eyes back open, I was alone in the back seat of my car, the rumble of tires on pavement suggesting we were halfway back to Gate City already.

  I could deal with Thom’s suspicions tomorrow. Healing slumber drew me into its welcoming embrace.

  I WOKE TO LUNGS THAT didn’t ache and a body that felt as good as new. I stunk, however. Stretching, the scents of sweat and smoke swirled around my head.

  Yuck. Definitely time for a shower. No wonder Pumpkin had chosen to nap at my feet rather than on top of my head.

  But when I padded out of my room, Charlie was nursing a mug of tea at the dining-room table. Charlie, who didn’t believe in lazy Sunday mornings. Maybe I hadn’t slept as long as I’d thought I had.

  Nope, the light outside the window was so bright it had to be nearly lunchtime. And Charlie’s mug wasn’t steaming, suggesting she’d been sitting there for quite a while. So much for that shower.

  I took my usual chair and addressed my housemate. “What’s up?”

  Bracing myself, I expected her to mention Kaito. I’d wanted to break the news to her gently once we had proof that he’d either died or escaped the fire. But I’d fallen asleep before discussing that plan with Thom last night. Maybe he’d decided Charlie deserved to be kept in the loop.

  She considered me over the top of her mug for one long moment. Then she shook her head. “You look like you had a really bad night. This isn’t the right time to talk, is it?”

  To talk? Charlie had mentioned having something to discuss days ago...and I’d forgotten. Given the hard conversation she and I were going to have about Kaito in the very near future, chances were good that I’d forget again.

  So I focused on my friend, forcing all other concerns to fade into the background. “There may never be a right time,” I told her. “Spit it out.”

  Rather than accepting my invitation, Charlie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. When she finally spoke, she did so with her eyes on her mug. “We need to talk about when you’re moving out.”

  I jolted. “Moving out?”

  Maybe I wasn’t fully awake yet, but Charlie’s words didn’t make sense. After all, for the last three months we’d gotten along like gangbusters. We talked half the night sometimes, gave each other space other times. And even though we’d never formalized our rental agreement, I handed over cash in a timely manner, did extra chores before Charlie mentioned them, and thought we were even. If we weren’t....

  “I didn’t mean to impose.” Springing back to my feet, I found them oddly wobbly. Maybe sleep hadn’t fixed me up as much as I’d thought it had.

  Either that or Thom was right. I was clinging to Charlie as a link to home.

  Wincing, I headed for my room. It wouldn’t take long to pack since I’d stocked up on the bare minimum to get me through. It wasn’t like I could just drop by the cabin down the road from Mai’s house and retrieve my possessions, not with the Lawkeepers considering me a loose cannon poisoning everything I touched.

  Just like I’d, apparently, poisoned my friendship with Charlie.

  “Kira.” Charlie followed me, or so I assumed even though I didn’t turn around to face her. “You’re going silent on me. I don’t like it when you go silent.”

  With an effort, I pasted on a smile and forced myself to meet her gaze at last. “Hey, no big deal. I get it. House guests and fish both stink after three days, right? It’s been a lot longer than that for me.” And—I raised one arm to confirm what I’d already gotten a whiff of—I really did stink.

  “Kira, stop it.” Charlie bent sideways to invade my sight line, which had drifted back to the floor when I wasn’t paying attention. “You have the wrong idea. I love being your housemate. But you shift into a fox. Run through the house furry....”

  That was the problem? I’d thought Charlie accepted who I was after learning my true nature last autumn. The fact my fur form was what had come between us made this whole thing ten times worse.

  “I can’t really help shifting when I’m sleeping,” I muttered, stuffing clothes into a backpack that wasn’t going to be large enough to hold all of them. Maybe I’d grab a trash bag from the kitchen cabinet for the rest, or just leave behind whatever I couldn’t cram in.

  My skin itched for me to be outside, to be gone from this space where I was no longer welcome. And Charlie snarled out a growl that would have done a shifter credit.

  “This isn’t going at all the way I expected it to,” she muttered. Then, louder, “The thing is, I met somebody recently. I was going to wait to tell you until we were more serious. But she’s into me and I’m into her and I want to be able to take her back here...and she’s seriously allergic to fur.”

  Chapter 17

  “She?” The backpack I’d been stuffing overturned and spilled my belongings back over the unmade bed.

  “She,” Charlie confirmed, her voice quavering only a little. When I turned around to face her, I found her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest.

  And my fox exuberance took over. I lunged at my friend, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around while caroling my excitement. “Charlie has a girlfriend! Charlie has a girlfriend!”

  My friend was usually willing to jump and squee with the best of them. But, this time, her muscles stayed stiff under my fingers, her tone cautious. “Well, maybe. I mean, it’s very new. And I told you completely the wrong way. It’s not that I don’t want to share a house any longer....”

  “...It’s just that you need some space. And I really can’t promise not to shed on the furniture, even if I was able to keep Pumpkin from inviting himself in every night. I get it.”

  I did get it. Got so many things that hadn’t made sense in the past.

  Like the way Charlie had never dated all through college, at least not where I could see her. I’d assumed she was just being thoughtful toward her sister, who tended toward irrational jealousy. Had thought Charlie might be as cautious around romantic relationships as she was around platonic ones. If that wasn’t the issue—

  “Did you really think I’d judge you for who you’re attracted to?” I shook my friend not entirely gently. “Have you been refusing to bring women home to meet the family because you were afraid of what we’d say?”

  Only after my demand came out did I realize how it sounded. I wasn’t part of Charlie’s family, not really. The two of us had spent three months rekindling a friendship that had previously lain dormant for nearly as long as we’d initially hung out together. Calling myself family was unbelievably bold.

  Or maybe not. Because Charlie’s muscles loosened beneath my grip at long last. “I haven’t been hiding,” she promised. “There was never anyone special before this. I’m not even sure there is now. I just...”

  The fizz of joy returned, strumming through my body as I finished her sentence. “You want to find out.”

  “I do.” And now her words came a little too fast. “And, about what I said earlier.... I didn’t mean you need to move out today, Kira. Take a few weeks. Find a place within walking distance that won’t blow your budget. There’s no big hurry.”

  There it was. The nervous backpedaling I’d expected from the moment Charlie brought up a significant other. We certainly couldn’t have her derailing her first foray into dating while using me as the excuse.

  So I shook my head, glad Charlie wasn’t a shifter able to smell mistruth. Then I lied through my teeth. “I’ve got multiple places to choose from. You can have your girlfriend over tonight.”

  WHETHER OR NOT CHARLIE would have seen through my fib given enough time, she wasn’t offered that opportunity. Because someone pounded on the front door before our conversation could progress any further. And when we ambled over to open it, Thom stood on the doorstep with a long skinny object I couldn’t quite make out clenched in his right hand.

  Something was up, but he didn’t tell us what immediately. Instead, his blue eyes met mine, the faintest hint of a smile warming his entire face and my face by reflection. “You’re better.”

  “Completely recovered,” I answered, considering the fact that Thom wasn’t. He hadn’t slept, that much was clear from his tangled hair and the beard stubble that had gone from a flattering shadow to slightly unkempt. Meanwhile, something about the set of his shoulders said more than lack of sleep was bothering him now.

  Which is when I remembered what had slipped my mind while talking to Charlie this morning. Thom was convinced someone in our pack had lit that house fire. He’d intended to check alibis after sending me away with Bertrand. Surely he hadn’t found rot close to home?

  “Did someone we know...?” I started.

  Thom shook his head. “Inconclusive but unlikely.”

  Charlie looked back and forth between the two of us. “What’s going on?” she demanded. Then, to me, “You shouldn’t have let me ramble if there was a problem.”

  Thom’s blue eyes slid away from mine, taking their heat with them. “Ramble?”

  This was Charlie’s opportunity to share her news with someone we both trusted implicitly. But when I raised my eyebrows, my friend shook her head minutely. “Just girl stuff,” she answered, which was literally the truth.

  And that was enough for Thom. Because he brushed past us, coming in without being invited. Silently, he led the way to the kitchen, filled the kettle and set it on the stove.

  Only then did he pull out a chair for me and one for Charlie. “Have a seat,” he murmured, his words the furthest thing from a command.

  Charlie looked at me, toward Thom, then over at me again. “You’re scaring me,” she said, remaining standing.

  I was the one who sat. I was the one who nudged Charlie’s chair a little further in her direction.

  Because if Thom was here, heating water for tea in Charlie’s kitchen.... Well, that meant he’d likely found something in the smoldering remnants of last night’s house fire that proved his guess about Kaito’s lack of survival.

  Sure enough, once Charlie sank down to perch on the edge of the chair we’d both offered her, Thom slid the object he’d been grasping across the table. It was about six inches long, sooty yet shiny in patches. Like a metal object that had been scuffed and dirtied.

  Or like a metal object that had gone through a fire.

  “Kaito was in a house that burned down last night,” Thom said gently. “The flames were hot and there was very little left afterwards. Just this, which I’m told is the type of pin used to mend a badly fractured bone. Do you happen to know whether Kaito...?”

  And Charlie’s face crumpled. She didn’t have to speak. Couldn’t, I suspected, or she would have started sobbing.

  But her face said it all. Kaito had perished in that fire.

  Chapter 18

  Reality struck and the remnants of my oath squirmed like bad fish in my stomach. I’d failed Kaito. Couldn’t even hunt for his murderer, not really, since the most likely suspects were within a very unfriendly alpha’s territory.

  All I could do was contact his brother. Let Ito down gently. But Charlie shook her head when I suggested being the one to break the news.

  “No, I’ll do it. I need to talk to Jessie anyway.” Her eyes flicked to Thom as he set a fresh mug of tea in front of her then her attention returned to me. “You know how she gets her feelings hurt if she’s not in the know.”

  And Jessie would inevitably discover that her twin had come out to me before her. Or she would unless the timeline was so tight that the difference of minutes could be swept under the rug.

  “Of course,” I answered. “I can vacuum fox hair while you’re talking. Even shifter ears can’t hear over that roar.” That way I could give my friend space while providing moral support if she needed me. When she needed me. Because Charlie’s eyes were still watery even if she hadn’t shed more than a few tears.

  But my friend was shaking her head while ushering me and Thom toward the front door. “We’ll have a cleaning party later. Not right now. Please?”

  What could we do? It was Charlie’s house.

  So Thom and I left her alone with her phone and her news—one piece terrible and one piece joyous yet potentially incendiary. Thom accepted his eviction immediately while I slipped into my bedroom, restuffing my backpack with what came easily to hand while leaving behind everything not within arm’s reach. This time, I wasn’t concerned about the abandoned items. I could come back for them later, a good excuse to check up on Charlie and provide any necessary pep talks.

  Speaking of which.... Even though I knew it would make her grumble, I set my house key on the kitchen table along with a scrawled note. “In case you have someone you want to give this to.” Then I left the cozy cottage that had been home for the last three months.

  Thom was waiting outside, just as I’d suspected he would be. His piercing eyes took in my bulging backpack and he raised one eyebrow. At my shrug, he vocalized the question. “Is there anything you or Charlie need help with?”

  “Are you asking as an alpha?” The squirm in my stomach turned into something else as I crossed the space between us without fully intending to. This wasn’t the tug of the full moon, just our usual magnetic attraction.