Shadow of Doubt - Hailey Edwards Page 0,12

is sitting back to see what I’ll do to get it for them.”

Nine out of ten gwyllgi deaths were what Hadley would call open-and-shut cases. Dominance fights kept the highest-ranking pack members from enjoying their full lifespans, and an accidental sneeze on the wrong person could spark a throwdown that spun into an all-out brawl.

Hadley.

A frown carved his mouth when he realized her name—and not Linus’s—had popped into his head first.

“I met Linus’s apprentice. There’s something about her.” A growl entered his voice. “I know her from somewhere, but I can’t place her. Yet.” He rubbed his face. “It’ll come to me.”

Overhead, the frayed rope creaked in the only agreement he was likely to get.

“I paired her up with Ford, but it ought to be me. I’m the beta. It’s my duty to protect the pack, not his. I did what Mom would have done. I passed the buck.” He gritted his teeth, grinding down on the insubordination in his tone. “She does things a certain way, and it works for her, but it’s not working for me. I was trained to be a soldier, not a prince. You were supposed to take the mantle, not me.”

That was all water under the bridge now that Lethe had her own pack, her own home, her own city.

She was an alpha, and one day he would be too, whether he wanted to be or not.

“Mom has booked my Friday and Saturday nights with her handpicked potential daughters-in-law since I got sworn in. I haven’t gone on any second dates, and she’ll run out of candidates before I agree to one.” His sigh left him sagging on weary bones. “You’d think she would understand why I...” He snapped his jaw shut, unwilling to speak of it, even to the empty air. “Some days I’m tempted to let Mom arrange a match. Just mate someone and get it over with.”

Then she would expect grandkids, and procreation required a level of physical intimacy that broke him out in cold sweats, even after all these years. Whatever unlucky female he chose might expect love when all he had to offer any woman was elevated rank. For some, it would be enough. More than enough. Those were the ones he ought to focus on.

Fingers bumping over the crosshatch scars raised down his forearms, he conceded it was no less than he deserved. To be used. Though he had trouble breathing when he pictured sharing a life, a purpose, a bed, with another person.

“You should have left me there,” he said, not for the first time, but added the words he would never utter to his sister, who had tried so hard for so long to fix him. “You didn’t save me.” He let his eyes close. “No one can.”

Four

Perkerson Park was a fifty-acre oasis for the city dweller in southwest Atlanta. Beyond the tennis courts, basketball courts, disc golf course—whatever that was—ball fields, rec center, and pavilion, I saw what must appeal most to the gwyllgi. Shady woods crisscrossed with walking paths, open fields prime for frolicking—though they would never call it that—even a stream for a quick dip in the summer heat.

Parks like these were a veritable paradise for the urban predator.

Hmm.

Can I get away with asking Ford if he can doggy paddle?

Probably not. Unless I was willing to find out how it felt to get bitten by a gwyllgi.

Ford parked without skimming signs the way I had been, so I assumed he was familiar with the area.

Unsnapping my seat belt, I scanned the otherwise vacant lot. “Anyone meeting us?”

“Midas returned to the den.”

The den made it sound primitive when the truth was the seat of the pack was a sprawling estate with an elegantly modern home flanked by miles of forestland. The alpha lived there, most of the pack did too, but I had never been invited for a tour. All I knew about it I’d heard in secondhand accounts from the POA.

“I was thinking more along the lines of the cleaners or the witness who discovered whatever it is we’re about to see, but good to know.”

A grimace twisted his features. “Beg pardon.”

He got out, and I sighed into the empty cab. “Men.”

“I heard that,” he said through the window.

Contrition was difficult to fake, but I like to think I managed as he opened the door for me.

“Gwyllgi tend to get protective fast, both the male and the female of the species,” he explained. “Midas paired us up, and that’s that as far as