“Mel...”
“I heard him. Hang on, I’m going to try.”
Something scuffed over the wooden floor. According to Rulon, while Lennox’s arms were tied to her ankles, damn near immobilizing her, Melody’s hands and feet were tied separately. Hands behind her back. Feet out in front of her.
If she could inch-worm her way over, Mel might be able to get her hands up high enough Lennox could help pull the rope off using her teeth. If they were lucky. Mel gave a low grunt.
“You all right?”
“Yeah just keep talking. I’m so going to have slivers up my ass by the time this is done.”
Slowly, Lennox heard Mel wiggle her way closer, each sliding scuff of shoes and rump over the wood another inch closer. But it wasn’t fast enough. Minutes ticked by, fear tightening like a noose over her heart. Torres could come back any minute and if he found Mel scooting across the floor... Lennox closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about that.
None of them could.
“Almost there,” Rulon said, voice faint. “Just a little...” Mel gave another slide. “There. Now, Mel, move a little bit forward.”
He sounded so much weaker, exhaustion weighing heavy on every word. The scent of silver rotting his blood so thick in the air it filled every breath Lennox took. “Thank you so much,” Mel whispered and Lennox wanted to hug them both.
Instead, she waited as Mel wiggled around.
“Now if you can find a way to get low enough...”
That was the easy part as far as Lennox was concerned. She shoved her weight to the side and crashed down on her shoulder, a pained groan sounding low in her throat. Damn that was gonna hurt later. “Wiggle your fingers, Mel, I can’t see worth a damn.”
“You and me both.” But Mel fingertips tickled her nose on command. Thank God.
“Can you back up a notch?” Mel did it and Lennox found her face buried in Mel’s hands. She strained her neck, her shoulders screaming in protest, but her lips found the coarse touch of rope. She reached out and grabbed it between her teeth. She braced herself for the sizzle of silver and it was the only thing that kept her from jerking back when it burned over her lips.
When she was done and out of here, she was going to string Torres up by his tonsils with this shit. “Pull,” she mumbled around the rope, trying to yank it down. Mel squirmed, her hands jerking. Nothing.
She heard Mel’s soft sound of defeat, Rulon’s heavy sigh. Fuck that. Lennox wasn’t done here yet. She closed her eyes, biting down harder on the rope. Silver seared at her mouth, an answering burn in her wrists, but her ankles...her socks cushioned the rope from her skin. She’d call it a rookie mistake, but she didn’t think it would have made much of a different for anyone but her, in a situation every bit as dire as this one.
Lennox concentrated on her hind legs, willing the dog inside her to come out, to start the transformation. She felt the sluggish answer of her magick, the animal inside her hunkered down somewhere safe, but Lennox needed her now.
Mel gave a surprised hiss as Hound magick spurred through Lennox, faint. Nothing like the power she could normally drum up. All she needed was just enough to get fangs. Her jaw ached, throbbing under the weight of silver, and then, the press of her teeth growing, her jaw changing shape. Lennox jerked, her canines hooked over the rope and Melody flailed against her.
Dizziness slammed through Lennox and she knew she couldn’t hold this half-change for long. They had to get out of this now. A scream broke the air outside the barn, young. A child’s and Lennox felt her heart kick into high gear. Torres, damn him. A frantic whimper slammed through her and it was enough. Magick snapped out of her, full of desperation and she felt the rope fray in her mouth. Silver scorched her tongue, but Lennox gave another jerk, just as Melody thrashed.
The rope pulled loose over Mel’s hands.
Mel gave a ragged gasp and Lennox heard Mel’s hands struggling to untie the bonds at her feet, then the scuff of tennis shoes as Mel rose and hurried behind her. Lennox shook her head. “No, go.”
She could hear footsteps in the grass now, along with a little girl sobbing, his soft shushes. They were so close now. Mel jerked at the rope and Lennox felt it fall loose around her wrists.
The footsteps were closer now, the girl’s sobs just outside the barn door. Lennox twisted her head into her friend’s shoulder and she breathed the words against Melody’s skin. “Run. Get help.”
“Just...”
“
Go.”
Melody left her. She heard the wooden door slam open. The sobbing stopped on a gasp, Torres snarled, but then there was the sound of paws hitting the earth in long, effortless strides. No doubt, Mel’s greyhound-style body a sleek blur as she streaked away from the barn. Lennox fumbled at the rope at her feet.
It fell away and she bunched it in a pile on the ground behind her. All that was left was the blindfold, but that had to wait. A shoe hit the wooden floor as Torres entered the barn and a loud lump sounded beside her. Rulon snarled, the low, sick sound turning to a gurgling roar as Torres dragged something else in.
“Uncle Rulon,” a soft, scared voice whispered. A child’s. Lennox felt her heart snap.
Torres wouldn’t hurt a kid.
She wouldn’t let him.
Tegan gritted his teeth against a growl as the Hound jerked him into a metal chair, his shins smarting under the impact. One more time and he was going to rip this little dog’s head off. He curled his lips back from his teeth and fought the urge to let the lion out and give the Hound’s head a good swat. Losing his cool here would not be good.
Instead he blew out a soft sigh and stumbled after the man dragging him along like a ragdoll. Then his gaze landed on the lion standing in front of a desk to his left, the spitting image of Kanon with a few extra wrinkles and damn. Tegan staggered to a stop.
Gaston Reyes sure left one hell of a mark on his kids. Kanon could’ve been the man’s twin if the man were twenty years younger. Tegan shook his head and blinked. The lion turned, hard eyes landing on Tegan, when the Hound yanked him forward a step and Tegan stumbled into another chair. A surprised yelp sounding from him.
“Clarence, that’s enough.” Brandt stood in the doorway, with a dumbfounded Kanon in his hands.
“Are these the lions with Lennox?” A sharp voice snapped over the crowd and Tegan found himself twisting to get a look at the woman behind it. She stood at the far end of the room, leaned back against a wall. Her hands stuffed in her pockets, she looked almost unassuming, if not for the pack of Hounds milling around her perimeter and the ruthless glint to her eye.
“Yeah.” Brandt gestured for Clarence and Tegan gritted his teeth as the Hound knocked him into a table while leading him towards the other man. Brandt shook his head. “Clarence, if that were any other man, shifter or not, he’d have already punched you.”
Clarence started to curl back a lip but the woman moved, stepping up between them. She was taller than Tegan had thought she would be, nearly as tall as he was. With the same, stocky build as Lennox, though she was softer. Less muscled. “And Lennox?” Then she shook her head. “Never mind. I’d like to speak with them both. Privately. I’ll take this one first since he’s being so docile.”
She reached out, laid a hand an inch above Clarence’s on Tegan’s arm and the other Hound backed off as if she’d struck him. She gave him a wry smile. Brandt just nodded. “I’ll put Mr. Reyes in the holding cell then. You can have Interview Room one.”
Her hand tightened over his bicep, a bare fraction of an inch, but Tegan took a step the moment she did. The Hound tilted her head, gesturing to a hall leading away from the main entrance. “This way.”
She marched him down the hall. The entire building was bare, brick walls and gray tiled floors. Five green doors lined the hall, each of them identical except for the label marking each one. The Hound holding him shouldered open the first one and escorted him into a small room.
A rectangular, metal table took up most of the room. Four orange plastic chairs surrounded the table. The same bare, brick walls revealed nothing but a barred window big enough for a rat to squeeze through. She kicked out a chair facing the door and gestured for him to have a seat. There was a soft intake of breath, her scenting and she stiffened next to him. One glance at her face and he watched her lip curl back.
Disgusted.
He knew what she scented. Lennox, last night, Kanon—it all lingered on his skin. Faint, but it’d be there. So would their morning rendezvous, the hugs, and the goodbye kiss. She sneered down at him as he sat, the chair unsteady under his bulk. It wasn’t a comfortable seat, his hands pressed tight against the back, still cuffed. The silver ate at his wrists.
Tegan half expected her to leave him there. To storm out and come back with a silver loaded pistol and execute him on the spot. She looked pissed enough to do it. Instead, she crossed the room and pulled the door shut, leaning back against it.
Her attention riveted on him, her eyes sharp and assessing. Waiting, observing, but Tegan held still, his eyes casually downcast. He wouldn’t fidget. He wouldn’t give her any reason to think he had a weakness or was guilty.
“I’m Breanne Torres.” She paused, her keen gaze zeroing in on his face. He recognized the name. Lennox’s boss. Tegan tilted his head back to get a good look at her. Her skin was darker than Lennox’s, her hair too. A touch more ruby, more bloody.
Which was fitting. It matched the cold, hard edge to her eyes. The ruthless tilt of her lips. But one look at her and Tegan could see she’d go to the end of the world for her people, she took care of her own. Loyalty was stamped in every muscle of her body. He’d wondered before what kind of Hound Lennox would answer too and the woman in front of him fit the bill.
“For this little chat you can call me Bree. I’m the Shifter Town Enforcement Alpha for Idaho.” She gave him a feral smile.
Tegan nodded. “Lennox’s boss.”
“Yeah. Speaking of Lennox, where is she?”
That wasn’t exactly a question he really wanted to answer. She wouldn’t like his answer. Tegan closed his eyes. “I have no idea.”
A growl snaked out of her, hard and fast. Bree was across the room in a blink, her Hound magick a hot flash across his skin. Nothing like the way Lennox had kept hers carefully in check. Bree poured her magick out into the air and it made his palms sweat. Her whole body vibrated with rage.
It was all Tegan could do not to flinch. Bree glowered down at him, her body stiff with potential threat. One wrong word and she’d have that bullet between his eyes, no doubt about that. Her palm lashed out and hit the metal table with a loud slap. That time Tegan did jerk back an inch, his lips thinned into a flat line.
Before he could figure out what to say, where to start, Bree pulled back, drawing in a long, shuddering breath. Then, softly, “Why don’t we start from the beginning? The night Lennox came to arrest your partner, what happened?”
A laugh bubbled up inside him, damn near hysterical and Tegan held it back. That wasn’t a safer place to start. Hell. That could get both him and Kanon dead
now
. He’d convinced Lennox to help clear Kanon’s name, but now all their witnesses were dead. They’d gotten out of Utah by the fucking skin of their teeth. Sheer, dumb luck. And Lennox.
Walker had never known the whole story and Lennox had covered their tracks. Spilling the whole thing out here... One wrong word and all of the murders could wind up pinned on them, probably with Lennox’s status changed from missing to dead. Since they hadn’t heard back from her that was a real possibility.
Bree let out a low, impatient growl. “Mr. Sharpe, I think I’m being very lenient here. Answer the question. What happened the night Lennox came to arrest Kanon Reyes?”
“I talked her out of it. Kanon was innocent.”
She lifted an eyebrow, obviously skeptical. “And just like that, Lennox believed you and went capering over the States?”
“No. She wanted proof, but she has a fair streak a mile wide. She was giving us the benefit of the doubt if we could provide witnesses.” He swallowed.
Her shrewd eyes narrowed on what he didn’t say. “So you went to Metro. Where both owners and a waitress ended up dead the next morning.”
Tegan gave a small nod, inhaled a deep breath, and took a leap of faith. “They were our three witnesses. Lennox met with them all, we took Tristan’s rental home that night, woke up the next morning to a Hound at the front door. The ridgeback in charge invited Lennox to the first crime scene...”
He closed his eyes, trying not to remember Tristan. Grief clawed at him. They’d all died. Tegan took a deep, shuddering breath and opened his eyes, pinning Bree with a hard stare. “Tristan and Caro, they were our friends.”
He didn’t mention Aiby. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to know about her, though he didn’t think he could flat-out lie to the Hound in front of him. She was watching him too closely, waiting for a slip up.
“I’ll never forget seeing...” His voice broke and Tegan looked away, a growl ripping through him and he could do nothing to hold it back. “Lennox and the Hounds there couldn’t find anything on who killed Tristan. It was wiped clean, Lennox suspected a witch.”
“Or someone hiring a witch.”