Wolf's Bane (Monstrous Hearts #2)

Chapter Nineteen

Alice clutched at the steaming styrofoam cup that had been given to her, expression blank while she sat on the hood of the rental car and watched deputies step in and out of the cabin. More could be heard in the forest, calling out for Rob. They had been looking for nearly an hour while waiting for a search and rescue unit to arrive. Vaguely, she wondered where Colton had left the body, but the question snuffed itself as soon as she glanced at him.

He had coffee as well, but instead bit at his third donut, every line of his body conveying utter disinterest in the deputies scouring the property. The thin afternoon light burnished his dark hair, emphasized the hard line of his jaw. Gave his eyes a yellowness that they normally only held while he was a wolf. He wore the type of rugged clothing suited for a crisp day in the mountains—flannel shirt, jeans, work boots. Between him and the deputies in their sturdy winter coats, she was well aware of being the odd one out: dressed in the sleek dress, wool coat, and heels Gretchen had given her and yet her face free of makeup, free of that mask that would complete the illusion of perfection. She must have looked like a girl lost in the woods. Like a doll left in a place where it had no purpose.

And yet she didn't feel that way at all, even when her tongue pressed against the dull, human shapes of her teeth.

As if sensing the tone of her thoughts, Colton's eyes met hers. Something tender replaced their flatness, but before he could speak, a voice shattered the air.

"Alice! Oh, there she is! Alice."

"That's my stepmother's voice," murmured Alice, looking down the driveway to find her father's car parking beneath a cluster of young redwoods—the only level ground not taped off or taken by deputies' cars. Denise already leaned out the front passenger's window, frantically waving at her.

"Your father looks upset," said Colton, taking the final bite of his donut. "He'll want to scare you back to a leash."

"Maybe, but it won't work," she said, waving back at her parents while rising up. "I've tasted too much of the wilderness."

How strange, the calmness she felt in her heart as he stood with her, eyes burning with that same light they held whenever he pulled her close and kissed at her pulse. How strange, the calmness that filled her voice as her parents hurried toward them, their faces etched with worry. "It's all right! We're both all right."

"Thank God," gasped Denise, sweeping her up into a hug. "We saw all this and expected the worst."

"There was a break-in at the cabin, that's all," said Alice, returning the hug. "We're fine."

Her father's brief glare toward Colton suggested he only gave a damn about one of them. "What exactly happened?"

Alice drew in a breath to repeat the words she'd already spoken to the sheriff. "We decided to drive here and stay at the cabin until we found a new long-term home. As soon as we arrived, we saw it'd been broken into and called the sheriff's office. They've been investigating ever since."

"You should have driven there," said her father, the lines of concern on his forehead deepening. "What if the intruders had still been inside?"

"One was. I recognized her." Then Alice turned in the direction of one of the deputies' cars.

Darby sat in the back of it, mouth set in a fixed line while she stared straight ahead at nothing. Even through the darkened glass of the window, it was apparent that her skin was clammy with sweat and that the front of her shirt had been hastily wiped clean, as if she'd thrown up from the aftereffects of the hallucinogen.

"Who is she?" Her father sounded baffled.

Such a simple question, and one that Alice could have answered easily. Darby Reeves, a friend of Magdalene's. Ah, but she was so much more than that, wasn't she? A girl obsessed, a girl blinded by pretty words and sudden love. A girl whose heart ached in adoration and trembled in gratefulness at being the object of love for such a brilliant, otherworldly creature. A girl much like who Alice had been, once upon a time.