Dark Wolf (Spirit Wild) - By Kate Douglas Page 0,39
his tablet, and glanced at the media screen on the wall. He’d left the large monitor running while he hunted for information on his tablet, though he’d turned the volume off some time earlier.
He stared at the images on the big screen a moment, but at first he couldn’t place what he saw. Enlarging the picture, he recognized the face of a local newscaster in the corner of the screen as an overhead camera focused on a large, raucous crowd gathered downtown. Familiar landmarks placed the action near the Civic Center.
The camera zoomed in on a striking silver-haired man on a raised dais surrounded by what appeared to be half a dozen large bodyguards. Sebastian turned up the volume just as his father raised his arm and the crowd fell silent.
There was nothing Aldo Xenakis loved more than an attentive crowd. The microphone amplified his already mesmerizing baritone voice, carrying his words out to the spellbound group gathered about him like fans at a rock concert.
Except his father’s form of entertainment was spewing hate, railing against the Chanku shapeshifters, blaming them for yet another death. The man was nothing if not consistent.
Staring at the screen, at the hatred on the faces of so many idiots standing in the crowd, hanging on to their exalted leader’s every word, Sebastian thought of Lily. Lily and her flashing aura and her beautiful spirit.
He thought of Lily with his father’s filthy diatribe in the background. At that moment he realized how much he hated the man. Hated him for his arrogance and sense of superiority that apparently made him think he had the right to incite a crowd of mindless fools to violence against a people who meant them no harm.
Without any proof beyond his own xenophobia, Xenakis encouraged bloodshed. With that mesmerizing, almost poetic cadence to his voice, he blamed the Chanku for the rapes and murders, pumping his fist in the air as he threatened revenge for the deaths of innocent young women.
“You bastard.” Disgusted, Sebastian reached for the controls to turn off the flat screen, when one of the bodyguards in the background shifted his weight. It was more than obvious the man was injured. Sebastian zoomed in for a closer look. The man was huge—heavily muscled and quite tall, but he wore a walking cast on his left leg. Curious now, Sebastian used the controls to move across the row of bodyguards until he saw what he was looking for.
The one on the far left had his right arm in a sling. Sebastian skipped back to the first bodyguard, the one with the cast, and zoomed in on his face. A deep cut ran across the bridge of his nose. It was mostly healed, but he’d heard that Chanku healed faster when they shifted.
The same nose Lily had slashed with wolven teeth? The leg he’d snapped with powerful jaws? And the other one’s arm. It couldn’t be mere coincidence, but what were Chanku doing with his father, a man who hated the species? And why would the same ones who had attacked him and Lily the night before be part of the half dozen men guarding Aldo Xenakis?
He had to call Lily and tell her what he suspected. She’d said last night that she didn’t know the wolves, but she’d recognized their scent. A scent associated with one of the murders.
Was his father aware of the fact his employees were behind the rash of killings? Could he be directing them? No. Sebastian shoved that thought aside, but it didn’t disappear. Not entirely.
Damn, but he needed to talk to Lily. She was smart and levelheaded, and she knew more about shapeshifters than anyone else possibly could.
He wished he’d stayed for that talk they’d promised each other. Wished he’d done a lot of things differently, but it was too late for misgivings. He needed to call her, but an idea had taken hold and wouldn’t turn him loose, so he shut down the monitor, grabbed his tablet computer, and headed for his room at the back of the house.
At least he knew he’d have a few hours before his father returned home. Time enough to try a spell he’d come across that might take him to the astral plane. He was certain his answers lay in that mysterious space out of place, but he’d never managed to access it before. His father drew a lot of his power from the astral. Not all—Aldo claimed he had other sources as well.