Page 86 of Butterfly Assassin
When he put it like that, shame washed through Aaron, and he sighed, letting his head fall back. “Yes, Alpha.” In his selfish need to see Michael again, to be involved in this case,to be neededby him, he’d forgotten there was a missing shifter in the middle of all of this. Three humans were dead, killed at the hands of a shifter, and Aaron wasn’t naïve enough to think anyone on that search party thought that Wilson didn’t do it. Sam was right, they needed to get to him first—he deserved the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. “Should Harry and I wait here?”
“Yes, but I’ve moved both of your full moon runs up to 8.00 p.m. In case they don’t have any luck finding them before then, I want to get our runs out of the way if we can.”
“We’re going first?” First out on the full moon run meant you had the place to yourselves for a little while. As the night progressed, more pack members came and went until the whole pack had done their mandated two hours. But for those first thirty minutes…
“Yes. With me.”
Aaron glanced at the phone and then at Harry, eyes wide.
That would mean one of his betas would be joining them and whoever else was slotted to go first. “What if they call while we’re running?”
“Nick will have my phone and he’ll wait for us at the park entrance. If the police call, he’ll find us.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you both at eight.”
With nothing left to say, Sam ended the call.
They sat there in silence for a few seconds, taking in what had just happened.
“Fucking hell,” Harry muttered. “Can you imagine Smith as a shifter?”
Aaron could, and his wolf snarled inside. “He’d be even worse than he is now. No way would he adhere to pack rules or the human laws we have to abide by. Can you see him ever following an alpha?”
“No.”
“The bite would be illegal. He could go to prison himself for getting it without proper documentation. Unless…”
“Unless he said Wilson bit him without his permission.” Aaron swallowed at the implications of that. “It’d be his word against Wilson’s.”
Harry met his gaze. “Smith’d have to kill him.”
A sinking feeling settled in Aaron’s belly as he glanced out at the afternoon sun. “If he’s not already dead.”
* * * * *
“Anything?” Michael asked.
Detective Sergeant Ian Miller slipped his phone back into his pocket and shook his head. “No. They’ve checked his two rental properties and no sign of Smith or Wilson at either one. What about you?”
“Arlington says he’s not been near his coffee shops, and they’re still waiting to hear from Frank and DS Price.”
“Fuck.” Miller ran a hand through his hair and turned in a circle. “Now what?”
They stood outside Daryl White’s home. No one was in, and according to the cleaner they’d met when they arrived, White hadn’t been home in a couple of days.
Where the fuck is he?
Miller walked over to him and leant against the wall surrounding the front of White’s house. “You said if he’d been bitten, then he’d need somewhere private while he goes through the change, right?”
“Yes. According to the council, White will go through something not unlike a bad case of the flu whether the bite takes or not.”
“So, he’s going to be vulnerable. He’d want people he trusted with him.”
Michael nodded. “Like Blake and the others he keeps close.”
“Blake for sure. We’ve got plenty of photos of them together, he rarely leaves White’s side. Maybe a couple of the others.”
