Chapter 41

Sarah POV

Chloe was with the tutor, Dr. Hayes, and I was on my second cup of coffee when my phone bree-bropped with a notification. I had it set to alert me if Zane or the girls were mentioned on social media.

Someone had posted on Insta that Zane had “done a good job,” with a link to a news article.

After getting rid of the pop-up ad, I was looking at a photo of Zane and the headline, Alpha Zane Leads Successful Hunt for Rogue.

“What the hell?” I muttered, scrolling down.

Last night saw a successful hunting down of the rogue werewolf who attacked Grace Cavendish yesterday. Alpha Zane led a pack of over twenty wolves over eight miles of territory before the rogue ran into traffic on the I35 and was killed instantly by a semi-trailer truck hauling produce and driven by Keith McIves.

The identity of the rogue has not yet been determined, but the coroner on site said it was definitely an adult male gamma. It’s quite rare for gammas to go rogue, so the coroner also said there may have been some underlying illness that caused the feral state.

As reported earlier, Grace Cavendish was able to achieve a precocious partial transformation to heal herself, so Alpha Zane might have chosen to spare the rogue’s life if the hunt hadn’t ended in an apparent suicide.

“He just ran right out in front of me,” McIves said at the scene. “It was impossible to avoid him. I’m just glad the truck didn’t jackknife or some other [expletive]. Damn selfish way to kill yourself, if you ask me.”

McIves also said he saw the hunting pack that had been chasing the rogue and described the wolves as “damn scary.”

When reached for comment, Alpha Zane said only he was glad no one else had been hurt and that he was “proud and grateful” for the pack.

“The things you miss when you’re sleeping,” I said aloud, setting the phone down even as it beeped with more notifications. I had seen Zane just a few minutes ago when he came into the kitchen for coffee, and he hadn’t said a word about this, only that he was looking forward to getting Grace from the hospital this afternoon.

I sipped at my lukewarm coffee and remembered him standing there at the counter, not a hair out of place. Last night he’d transformed, gathered a hunting pack, and run the rogue wolf out into traffic and to his death. Surely that had been worth a mention?

And now that I knew about it, was I supposed to say something? Was I supposed to ignore it? Who else had been in that pack?

Never before had the violence of werewolves impacted my life like this. Someone I knew, someone I cared about had hunted down a fellow wolf and gotten them killed. I had no idea how I felt about it, let alone how I should behave.

And what about Chloe and Grace? Would they be in a hunting pack someday?

“That’s quite an expression on your face,” Dr. Hayes said as he came into the kitchen with a coffee mug in his hand.

I looked up at him, this kind man wearing a tweed jacket and wire spectacles I had hired to help me care for the girls’ education, and asked before I thought about it much, “Were you there in the pack last night?”

“Yes,” he said casually as he poured himself a mugful. “Alpha Zane sent out a general call, and of course I had to help rid us of someone who would attack Grace like that.” He frowned at me. “Did you think I wasn’t invested in the girls’ care?”

“No, you’ve been wonderful with them. I just, it’s just taking me a minute to get it sorted in my head.”

“To get what sorted?”

“The violence of it, I suppose. Zane didn’t even mention it this morning.”

He grimaced slightly. “It was a distasteful business, but necessary. Even if he were ill, the idea of a rogue attacking a little girl like that, it couldn’t be tolerated.”

“No, I suppose not.”

He leaned back against the counter and regarded me. “How would humans have handled it?”

The question stumped me for a moment. I shook my head. “Humans don’t go rogue, but of course we do have to worry about the mentally ill and the murderous. If he’d been human, he’d have been arrested and put on trial.”

“And then live the rest of his life in prison? Seems like a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

Again, I was startled at the casual bloodthirstiness of his response. To my relief, he changed the topic by asking after Grace.

“She’s eager for us to come get her from the hospital,” I said, thinking of the phone call Zane had placed this morning. “The doctors want to give her a final MRI before releasing her, but by all appearances she’s going to be fine. Thankfully, she remembers very little of the attack.”

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her for any emotional affects, of course.” He shook his head. “It really is amazing she managed a transformation so young, even with the help of the Luna Temple. I didn’t transform until I was thirteen.”

He straightened up. “Well, must get back to Chloe before she thinks I’ve abandoned her.”

I smiled and nodded as he left. Ultimately, I decided to be glad he cared enough about Grace and Chloe to have joined the pack, and I was grateful for his little hint not to talk about it the “distasteful” business” with Zane.

My phone beeped again, and this time the link on Instagram went to a different article that basically said the same thing. I fell willingly down the rabbit hole, reading enough comments on social media to be certain the approval for the hunting pack was universal. Zane was a popular leader.

A couple of the articles did make me worry when they speculated over whether the attack on Grace might have been politically motivated. Could the attack have been something other than random?

Dr. Hayes left before lunch, which I ate with Zane and Chloe making no mention of the night before. Then we tramped out to the car with our bodyguards, Mike and Danielle, who got into a black sedan to drive behind us.

Chloe claimed the front passenger seat, while the adults went into the back, where, to my relief, Zane spoke up.

“I’ll expect you have read about it by now.”

“Yes,” I said.

He looked at me pointedly. “Do you have any questions?”

“As I understand it, it was a distasteful but necessary action.”

He nodded. “Well said.” And that was that.

Ollie pulled up at the hospital’s front door and held open the doors for us to leave. The sunshine was bright, and I was reaching into my purse for some sunglasses when suddenly I was on the ground, my ears rang with the sounds of gunshots and breaking glass, and there was a heavy body on top of me.

Zane shouted my name, and I heard the squeal of tires and someone honking on their horn. I was rolled over gently, and Mike’s face looked down at me from just inches away.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I managed. Then I noticed a red dot on his shoulder was growing and shouted, “You’ve been shot!”