He gestured to the wet bank of the creek. Confused, I prowled around the edge of the crowd so that I could get a better look. On my way around the humans, I caught a scent that made my stomach churn.
I stopped in my tracks, every muscle freezing. Panic made my heart hammer a frantic beat. Alvin’s scent covered everything around me. At first, I thought he was breathing down my neck because he’d somehow known what I would do.
Then I noticed the scrap of fur clinging to a ripped piece of bark. My heart didn’t settle, though. My gaze slid back to the police gathered at the edge of the creek. Pressing forward, I peered between them.
The ground that had cradled the corpse of a woman was now flat. Someone called for a shovel. They said the dirt looked overturned, but I heard the murmurs that this wasn’t what they’d been told would be here. I held my breath as they broke the ground. There should have been a corpse on top of the ground. That was where Addie and I had left her.
The undead creature had crawled its way out of the earth. Had the body disappeared back into the earth after Addie’s arcana disappeared? I had no idea how any of this worked, but I had a sinking feeling that something else had happened.
Alvin’s scent in the air had been a warning that I needed to keep in mind. He’d been here recently. Addie and I had left the corpse above ground. If Alvin checked on the graves every so often, then he would have noticed the corpse. While I was thankful that the corpse had climbed out of the earth on its own and hadn’t been dug up by anyone, that didn’t change the fact that my scent lingered here.
I was in trouble.
Thor’s offer came to my mind, unbidden. The thought of leaving Lakesedge seemed sweeter now. It offered me an escape just when I needed it. I had no idea how I would get ahold of Thor again, but I was sure that my father could manage it.
No. I couldn’t leave! The pack deserved to know. If Alvin had figured out what I was doing, then so be it. He would have learned at some point. I couldn’t hide everything from him.
Hunkering down, close to the ground, I watched the police dig into the earth. After several breathless moments, the man digging grunted and passed to lean on the shovel. I waited, hoping something would happen. When nothing did, my heart sank.
“There’s nothing here,” the man called out. He shook his head. “False call! What a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
I growled, unable to stop myself. This wasn’t a prank, but I couldn’t exactly leap out and tell him that. Not in this form, and not in my human form. I didn’t want to get involved with the police or else Alvin would retaliate. He made my life difficult enough as it was.
For this, Alvin would make my life a living hell. He knew that I’d been near the body. I couldn’t be sure if he knew I’d come here on purpose. I still had enough plausible deniability because we hadn’t actually dug the body up.
If he asked, I could tell Alvin that Addie and I were stretching our legs. We came upon the body by accident. Once we saw it, we freaked out and left. We didn’t know who it was or why it was there. I could tell him that I called the police because it seemed like the right thing to do.
I could still lie my way out of this. I didn’t have to leave with Thor just yet.
I hoped that I wouldn’t have to leave at all.
The police spent a little longer digging up the edge of the creek. I appreciated their thorough inspection, even if they thought this was a false alarm. When they found nothing, they began to clear out. I listened to their grunts and grumbles while they retreated back towards the road.
When they were gone, I climbed out of my hiding place and paced the edge of the creek with my nose low to the ground. A fine mist began to fall from the sky, dampening my fur and softening the ground. I searched for the reek of rot that had hit me last time.
Once I found it, I used my claws to dig deeper. No matter how far down I went, I found nothing. The body was gone.
Alvin had moved it.
If I could have cursed in my hound form, I would have. Instead, I turned and sprinted back to where I’d parked. The sky opened up and dropped a thick blanket of rain upon the earth. By the time I got back to the grove where I’d first shifted, I was soaked through and through.
I wrapped my arms around myself and ran for my car with the hopes that no one would see a naked woman on the side of the road. At least this was still close to Syracuse. Maybe no one would think anything of it. The last thing I needed was a kind Samaritan calling the cops to help me.
Once I threw myself into the car, I locked the doors and yanked the back seat down so I could grab a sweater from the trunk. I tugged it over my wet hair then crawled between the two front seats and settled into the driver’s seat.
A local cop car coasted down the road. The man behind the wheel eyed me. I quickly lifted my phone to my ear as if I’d pulled over to take a call like a good driver—not that anyone around here ever bothered to do so.
The cop car ambled on and left me alone, much to my relief. I turned over the engine and sped away from here. My first instinct was to go back to Ryder’s, but I had no way of knowing if he was even home. He didn’t have a cellphone that I could call.
So, instead, I turned toward Bad Moon Café. It didn’t matter who was working. I would feel safer as long as I was there, and I needed that. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel while the gravity of my situation began to sink in.
I could still lie my way out of this mess, couldn’t I?
There was no way to know until Alvin hunted me down. Until then, all I could do was worry about what might happen.
Ryder
I’d spentmost of the morning on the edge of Beryl’s territory, testing the limits of her pact. The medallion thrummed against my dragon scales as I pushed past the boundaries. Over and over, I found myself returning.