Allure of the Wolf (Seraphine Thomas Book 2) (26 page)

“It’s not a kid though,” Harris muttered, studying the size difference between Davis and Cooper before glancing at the first body. “We don’t turn until well after puberty and at the earliest sixteen or seventeen, and sixteen’s pretty rare. Most go around eighteen.”

I realized he was thinking of the kid who turned him and quickly wanted to move past
that
memory. “Okay, but even if it was an eighteen-year-old who maybe hasn’t had his growth spurt or a girl, it’s not like they’re a baby shark, right? They’re just not full-grown.” I waited until Harris nodded before glancing at the pathologist.

“Sharks are only born,” Jennings piped in, snapping his fingers. “There should be a direct correlation to how old they are as a human to the age of the shark.”

The pathologist and I shared a look before I waved him on. “Explain that.”

“There’s a reason lycanthropes wait to change forms until a certain age,” he elaborated. “Puberty is hard enough on the body, same in animal form.
Technically
a female can give birth then or male reproduce, but just because they can, doesn’t mean they should—physically. There’s a lower chance of issues fully out of puberty, not just once she
can
. An animal instinctually knows that.”

Harris rolled his eyes and waved him to move it along. “Short version, by seventeen or eighteen you’ve probably had the big growth and
hormone
spurts and can handle dealing with your animal before moving into the mating and reproducing parts of your life. It’s like nature knew to hit that window before someone might want to settle down and not throw it in
after
that, because wow, not the best thing to spring on a person after mating.”

“Got it, so how does this relate to the case?” I was pretty sure I knew but I needed him to spell it out so there were no misunderstandings and for everyone else there.

“It’s now proven that sharks can live as long as humans but we live longer than humans,” he continued, cupping his elbow with one hand and tapping his fingers against his lips. “But my cheetah coincides with my age. So if I was
born
a cheetah, I didn’t shift until eighteen which put me at a certain stage in human life, my cheetah is that stage in life too. The shark isn’t a baby, it’s the same stage as the human it turns back into. The tricky part is figuring out the range of what that translates into when shifters live so much longer.”

Yatzee! That was what I’d been waiting for someone to spell out. I glanced at the pathologist. “Could your colleague give us an approximate age of a shark based on the bite radius for a male and female shark?”

She pursed her lips and bounced her head back and forth. “I can ask.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. Might be nothing but might narrow our suspect pool. I guess they’re rare so not like there’s tons walking around Chicago.”

“Or Gary,” Cooper snickered.

“Ah, but we had that storm the day this one died,” the pathologist reminded us. “Big winds blowing southeast. I’d bet if you get a hit on this DNA I’m collecting, you’ll find him to be a Chicagoan as well. Two days in the water could take him to Gary with Lake Michigan currents and a storm helping.”

“Can we keep
her
on our team?” Cooper asked, blinking at the pathologist. “I like her.”

“Stop adopting people,” I chastised, cutting my arms in front of me like an
X
. We couldn’t just
add
random people to our team or claim our own pathologist just because Cooper wanted them like a puppy he liked at a shelter.

“Just her and Corbin,” he muttered like a kid who got scolded for having his hand in the cookie jar. “They’re helpful and not weird about us not being human. I like that.”

“I like vampires,” the pathologist chuckled. “Had one save my life not too long ago. Guy tried to mug me when I was leaving here late one night and this vampire heard the commotion from blocks away, raced over and helped me. I’m all for having them on the police force with reflexes and speed like that.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m not biased against shifters, but you can infect someone. That’s different. Vampires have to consciously turn a person. I don’t see why they have to be in a different division.”

I gave her a sad smile to show there were no hard feelings. “I don’t disagree. I’m just not sure where who belongs anymore. There’s too much for any one division to handle any of it but completely separating us isn’t the answer either. Maybe the answer is like SWAT.”

“That’s a
start
,” she sighed before focusing on the body again. Again, I didn’t disagree.

I simply didn’t have the power or magic wand to fix everything.

* * * *

My team stayed a bit longer with the very nice pathologist to pick her brain while I went with Havers and his team to fill out the report on Frank. Monroe wasn’t too happy with me about that one… Professionally.
Personally
I had a feeling he was jealous I got to deck the man. Yeah, Frank had that effect on people.

While I was doing that, Engle had faxed over that information. So I asked Monroe to forward it to my email and I checked it over with Havers while I was there to save another trip or conversation with the man. I was kind of getting tired of seeing him all the time.

Being transferred was
supposed
to have the perk of not having to see him all the time after the way he’d hurt me.

Sure enough everything Engle had told me was true—there wasn’t a single record of any of Bernard Dorcus’s crew in the pack’s records. Wow, Engle being straight with me for once. And people said there weren’t miracles anymore?

It took some convincing but finally I got Havers to back off Engle and the pack, focusing solely on following up on the mob angle and in
his
jurisdiction. That at least made me happy.

By the time all
that
was done, it was well after dinner and I picked something up in the city, got gas before my car died, went home, and crashed.

The next morning I caught sight of something that made me smile and brought some
major
simplicity to my life, like seriously, just a
sign
right there from whoever was paying attention. I had almost wanted to pray. I made a couple of calls and took full advantage on the way to driving to the safe house to check in with the five women in protective custody. I filled them in on the requests from their mates for supervised visitation and it was a unanimous
no
.

I wasn’t all that shocked by that answer. They thought it was a ploy to try and track them down and I tended to agree.

When I got home, I
was
surprised to see Chief Monroe’s car in front of my house. That couldn’t be good. I pulled in my garage, seeing Riley’s car was there since he’d worked Friday night’s shift so he would be off until after the full moon.

“It’s the weekend, boss,” I sang as I entered the house.

“You told me to inform you as soon as I heard from the Shifter Council,” he countered from my kitchen. I kicked the door closed, set down my bag, and threw my keys in the bowl before making my way in there.

“Well it can’t be good if we’re having a face-to-face,” I drawled, my heart sinking as I opened the fridge, glancing at him.

“It is, but you just won’t like it,” Riley mumbled. I glanced around and saw he’d been shopping,
grocery
shopping to be exact. Every cutting board we had was out, all the knives, and lots of Ziploc bags splayed on the counter, labeled.

Which meant he was preparing freezer slow cooker meals.

Which meant
he was upset or needed to think because we had a stocked freezer.

“Rip the Band-Aid off,” I sighed, pulling out a bottle of water and slamming the door closed harder than I needed to.

“They want you to take over the pack,” Monroe informed me as he casually snagged a mushroom from a bowl in front of him. “They’ll back you as the new Alpha.”

“No,” I snarled even as my wolf just about did a happy dance. I think I was more telling
her
that. “No!”

“I told them you would say that,” he grumbled, letting his head fall back to his shoulders.

“Let
them
clean up this shit. This happened on
their
watch under
their
nose.”

“No!”
they both exclaimed, their eyes filling with fear—Riley going so far as to drop the knife he’d been holding.

I glanced between them before opening my water and leaning my hip against the counter. “What am I missing?”

“They will come in and wipe out anyone even
suspected
of having been involved,” Riley whispered as if worried someone would hear him and it might come true. “People would flee at the
mention
of the council, Sera. Panic, chaos, anarchy until ultimate dictatorship, and we have no idea what kind of iron fist they would leave here in the form of Alpha.”

“They have no one to put in at the moment which is why they’re keen on the idea of Sera,” Monroe informed us.

“That explains Engle’s fear when I said I was talking to the council.” They both stared at me with wide eyes. “Everyone needs to stop
judging me
for things I tell people or let slip out if they don’t start telling me what
not
to say!”

“Never, not
ever
tell anyone that you’ve been talking with the Shifter Council,” Monroe explained, shivering as he ticked off a finger of his hand, continuing to another as he went on. “Never tell you’re a siren or that you’re an Alpha before you’re
actually
an Alpha. Basically you know nothing.”

“Let them figure it out,” Riley added as he wiped his hands on a towel. “Deny everything.”

I took a
long
chug of the water before glancing at them in turn. “One, that’s a
horrible
way to get people to trust me when I might need them later and I’m just walking into this world. Two, I
wanted
Engle to be afraid and start shaping up. It worked. He gave me what I needed. I will start being more discreet and keeping things under the proverbial hat like when I was simply clairvoyant, and yeah, I won’t ever tell those three things again but I won’t deny
everything
.”

The kitchen went silent a minute besides Riley scrapping chopped mushrooms from the cutting board into a
done
bowl. “Fine,” he conceded. “But for now, you need to fight up higher in the pack so Engle sees you as more of a threat and
keeps
behaving.”

“How many more do I have to go before getting next to him?” I held up my hand when he smiled. “We discussed this. Taking over the pack means murdering him and I
won’t do that
.” Riley nodded and then winced, glancing at Monroe. I let out a soft growl. “How many?”

“He has six Betas,” he hedged.

“I know
that
. That’s why the pack hasn’t split like other major cities. He’s got a team of backups. How many are dominant in the pack to me after you yielded your spot to me?”

“Eighteen.”

I dropped the bottle of water I’d been holding but luckily Monroe was fast enough to catch it. He slowly stood again and handed it back to me.
“Eighteen?”

“Yeah,” Monroe sighed. “Eighteen fights. Six Betas and a dozen enforcers. Riley was just getting to the enforcers. Tony Harper and Roe Smith are alternates and just douchebags but not official enforcers.”

“Fuck a duck,” I breathed as I leaned heavily on the counter. “Just fuck a
flock
of ducks.” I shook my head. “Those were easy fights but they weren’t even
enforcers
. You’re saying twelve of those before I even get to the
Betas
.”

“You don’t have to do it all at once, Sera,” Riley tried, giving me a forced smile. “Hell, after your fight with Noah, some may step aside. You said Engle wants you as a Beta. Let him think that’s the play.”

“He won’t want one that earned it by forfeit,” I snapped, squeezing the water bottle hard enough that some splashed up out of the opening.

Riley nodded, seeing my point. “No, probably not.”

“You said you have others wolves coming to help you. Take some of the heat off of you and you guys can mix up the fights.” Monroe leaned over and handed me a few clean paper towels. “They’ll have to start from the bottom whereas you didn’t since Tony and Roe challenged you. Take a couple each night of the lunar cycle this full moon and that will knock six or so off the agenda. Pick a few more throughout the month. By then you’ll have a lot less if Engle isn’t behaving.”

I snatched them out of his hand, dabbing at my shirt. “I don’t
want
to be Alpha,” I reminded them.

“Well too
bad
!” Riley exploded in a rare show of aggression, slamming the bowl he’d just lifted onto the counter, sliced mushroom bouncing out of it and all over the place. “Do you want Engle to keep pulling the shit he has been?”