Page 4 of Filthy Fae

Scarlet

The room spun. I closed my eyes and pressed my back against the wall for stability. I’d misheard my father. There was no way. The sheer idea that a wolf from our pack had casually attended a sex party and committed mass murder was ludicrous. The first part I’d believe of over half of the pack, the second part I’d bet my life against even being a possibility.

When I didn’t respond, my father cleared his throat again. “The officer I spoke to said that only the Seven Rivers pack alpha, the pack lawyer, or a representative from NALC could get in. When I couldn’t reach you, I called Lance. He said he could be there before eight with his lawyer, as we don’t currently have one.”

“That’s fifteen minutes from now,” Darrel said, clearly overhearing my dad’s side of the conversation.

“Dad, who was at the sex party?”

He took a moment to answer, and I could hear him gulp over the line. “Zane Reed.”

“What the—” After a few stunned moments, I managed to whisper, “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Wow. Just, wow. My stomach sank and squeezed at the same time, as if my body was torn about whether to be worried or outraged. Now I knew why my father was so reluctant to tell me.

Up until about a month ago, Zane Reed and I had been in a long-term relationship. That had ended when I discovered that my sister frequently gave Zane blow-jobs in alleyways. He’d even given her a nom de guerre on his phone, “Hospital,” so I wouldn’t find out their frequent sexting.

That all culminated in Zane and Zeezee breaking into an unused unit in my building and having sex for the first time—only to realize that they were true mates. When I caught them, Zane had the audacity to suggest that he and I keep going as a couple. Needless to say, he wasn’t my favorite person.

Could I believe that Zane would cheat on his true mate and go to a sex party?

Yeah, I could. Cheating on your werewolf true mate was supposedly antithesis to our nature, but if any werewolf couple were to embrace that taboo, it was them.

Hell, I could even see my sister giving Zane the thumbs up—she was a complicated werewolf, and no part of me wanted to understand Zane and her relationship. I got enough fallout from having to hear complaints from Oorg in the apartment next to theirs, who said the two were always fighting, screwing, or playing music, and all of it was at excessive volume.

But could I see Zane killing anyone?

No.

"Does Zeezee have any idea what's going on?" I asked.

“Your mother is texting with her. Zeezee seems worried and has been hounding your mom for details. She said she didn’t know about the party or anything about the circumstances of Zane’s attendance, only that Zane was going out. Your mother got the impression that Zeezee was with company herself. She's under an understandable amount of stress right now. Hopefully more information will arise in her mind when her endorphin levels subside. Unfortunately, we don’t know any more than what I’ve just told you. I’ve been sorting through my books, but I’ll need some information to narrow down my research. Zane is—well, he’s not perfect, as you know. But I can’t imagine what led to him landing in such circumstances.”

Circumstances? More like hell.

My father took an audible breath and then added, “We have to take care of this as a pack, but you don’t have to do it, Scar. If you want to delegate this to me as your beta—”

“Thanks, Dad, but I’ll take care of this.”

I might have imagined it, but I thought I heard my father covertly sighing on the other end. "I'll be here, sorting through volumes and waiting for an update. Don’t worry. We’ll get him out."

The moment I hung up my phone, Darrel leaned in. “What do you need me to do?”

I headed for the door, fishing in my jacket pockets for my keys. “We’ll head straight to the police station and call Lance on the way. I just need to grab… Damn it. Where are my keys?”

“Did you bring them up with you?” Darrel asked before nodding to the door. “We used mine to get in.”

“I swear I did. They were in my jeans pocket and then… Did I throw them away?” Heading toward the kitchen, I pulled out the trash can where Darrel and I had stuffed our destroyed clothing.

“Want me to do it?” Darrel asked, grimacing at the trashcan that now reeked of sour onions. He wrinkled his nose. “Or I could just call a taxi. I don’t think taking my bike is the best idea right now.”

Between the reek and the emotions swimming inside me, I felt ill enough to add to the unpleasantness in the trash can, but I needed to get my shit together and handle this.

“No, I need my ID, which is in my wallet, which was in my pants, and I’m already doing this.” Shoving on some thick rubber gloves, I started rifling through the scraps of acid-eaten material as fast as I could, but they were all in a tangle.

“Scarlet?”