Page 19 of Beautiful Madness

He shrugged. “I just know it’dbe bad if she thawed out and we weren’t here to stop Eli from freeing her. Shemay not stay frozen much longer.”

“Or she may stay frozenforever. I’ll give it some time. If I destroy her now, it will start a war withEli and the pack.”

He nodded. “The housekeeperwill call you if she does thaw.”

“She will, and it won’t matterwhat Eli does. I’ll handle it.”

“Even if she were thawed, she couldn’tdo much without her wand, right?”

“She could whisper poison intoEli’s ear, but she’s been doing that all along.”

I was surprised when we reachedour cars without incident, though I knew we were being carefully watched. Eliwouldn’t mess with the council, and now that I’d flashed my badge and let themknow I was investigating under the authority of the elders, I was pretty sure thepack wouldn’t dare interfere. Not unless Eli thought they could get away withit.

When Joe and I arrived at thecars, neither Zach nor Remy were there waiting, and after five minutes, I beganto get a bad feeling. I’d believed Remy wouldn’t be interfered with because hewas working with me—also he was the boogeyman—and the pack loved Zach.

I cocked my head when I heardshouting in the distance, and with a muffled curse and Joe right behind me, Isprinted past the gate arm. The guards made no attempt to stop me.

When I advanced upon the groupof wolves in the clearing behind the community center building, I fullyexpected to see Zach and Remy surrounded and fighting resentful wolves.

I was partly right.

Zach was fighting, but Remystood back and occasionally glanced up from his phone, on which he appeared tobe playing a game. Remy couldn’t have cared less if the wolves killed eachother, but I would have expected more from him when it came to a fellow humanhunter.

But then the wolves decidedfighting Zach one on one wasn’t enough and three of them attacked him atonce—one of them from behind. And I discovered that Remy was a little more vigilantthan I’d believed.

He shoved his phone into hispocket, pulled a curved and serrated blade as long as his forearm, and went tohelp his hunting partner.

The scent of blood, alreadystrong to my wolf’s nose, became abruptly overpowering.

None of the wolves had shifted—itwas Jared’s wolves against Adam’s wolves, and they wanted to fight as men andwomen. That was fine for them, but not against Remy and Zach. They had superiorstrength and speed, and no matter how good Zach and Remy were, eventually theywere going to get taken out of the game. They were going to get hurt.

“Fucking children,” I muttered.I waded into the fight, Joe right beside me. He’d pulled his machete from itssheath and began swinging as he yelled, and I really, really didn’t want one ofthe wolves to lose his head.

“Stop,” I bellowed. “Break itup, assholes!”

No one listened. As I shovedwatching wolves out of my way, I caught sight of Eli. He stood a few yardsaway, his arms crossed, two warriors beside him. His unreadable expressiondidn’t change when he saw me looking at him.

Fine. If he wanted me todiscipline the wolves, I’d discipline the wolves.

But I noticed something else,as well. There were at least five Stone Moon wolves scattered around the area,all of them injured, one of them unconscious. And just that quickly, Iunderstood what had happened.

One or two of the Gray Shadowwolves had likely started shit with the new wolves, and when they eitherweren’t stopped or were egged on by Eli, the fight had escalated.

Zach had seen it happen, morethan likely, and had attempted to stop the bullies from picking on the newkids. Most of the Gray Shadow wolves did indeed love Zach—weird, I know, and thatcould have been because they considered him one of them or Jared’s pet—but notall of them would give a shit. Jared was out of sight, Eli was there, and theybelieved they could take out their anger and resentment on whomever theypleased.

They were wrong.

I began slinging the fightingwolves away—and not gently. I was becoming more pissed by the second, and thecause of that anger was quietly watching the wolves he should have beencontrolling.

He had Lennon’s influencewritten all over him. Her mere presence was giving him hope that she might thaw,become someone tolerable, and love him. What he didn’t seem to understand, orcare about, was that she was dragging him down into her darkness with her. Hewas more concerned with Lennon than he was with his alpha, and that was justwrong.

When Jared returned, I hoped hewould make some changes.

If. If he returns.

I forced the voice out of myhead and went back to concentrating on the thick crowd of wolves. I reachedZach and Remy and together, we attempted to restore order. The wolves weren’t interestedin fighting us—only each other. Gray Shadow against Stone Moon, both sidesreleasing their pent-up rage.

I should have dragged Zach andRemy away and left the wolves to deal with their issues, but they needed somerules. Eli wasn’t going to set any, so I would.