Captain Orst frowned, directed his words at Nagy. “The Were smells death in here. Two prostitutes have gone missing. The last one left the brothel building with Radek but never returned. He claimed he finished with her early and sent her away. Gregor provided an alibi, saying he saw her later going off with someone else.”
Captain Nagy shrugged. “While I find the murder of a prostitute personally distasteful, it’s not what brings us here. Do what you can to prove the healer’s allegations against Radek before this night ends in slaughter.”
Still standing protectively between her and Captain Nagy, Aryck flexed and unflexed his fingers, as though he was close to shifting forms and attacking.
Rebekka touched his back. Stroked. Her stomach knotting in nervous anticipation as Captain Orst went to the desk.
One of the keys slid smoothly into the top drawer. Orst pulled it open and reached in, removing a green canister whose design and appearance made Rebekka think of something left over from the days of war.
Setting it on the desk, he said, “It’s got an image of a wolf engraved into the metal.”
A second canister joined the first. “Hyena.”
A third followed. “This one appears more generic. I presume it’s meant for big cats of all types, certainly the image could mean mountain lion or jaguar.”
The muscles against Rebekka’s hand bunched in a prelude to attack. She wrapped her arms around Aryck’s waist. “Wait,” she whispered, hugging him tightly.
Twenty-nine
ORST’S expression held nothing but loathing as he looked at Radek. “Death is too good for a man willing to unleash plague. Tell me where the information files relating to these canisters are.”
Radek sneered, his earlier fear falling away. “Find them yourself. If you can. You have no evidence against me. All you have is the accusation of a woman who is willing to sleep with an animal. Even if you did have proof, I’d take my chances with a jury of my peers. They’d see me as a hero! A visionary! Someone with the courage to act and get rid of the Weres.”
“They’d see you for what you are, the worst of what humans are capable of.”
Orst placed his hands on the keyboard and began typing. Rebekka’s only experience with computers was at the library. She didn’t know how to do more than perform searches for information on what the librarian called an internet, a network of huge private computers all storing massive amounts of data and connected together by cables running underground.
The captain knew quite a bit more. It didn’t take long before the sound of typing stopped and the movement of his eyes indicated he was reading.
When he looked up he said, “I found his notes. The super-virus targeting werewolves was placed in a small pond. It degrades fast outside of a host. It should be inert, and any wolves or elk infected by it dead at this point. Bait of some type was used to infect the hyenas. Radek didn’t have time to distribute it to more than a single pack. I’m sure Captain Nagy would be willing to order his men to hunt—”
“The hyenas have been dealt with,” Aryck said, his voice harsh.
“Then that leaves only the third super-virus. It was being fed to the goats. I can attest that none of them have left the encampment.”
Captain Orst straightened and directed his attention to Radek. “Radek Ivanov, I am placing you under arrest. You have the right—”
Gunfire silenced him, its thunder throbbing through the room as Radek toppled backward with a hole in his forehead.
Aryck surged forward, knife drawn but halting almost instantly as Nagy’s weapon lowered. The militia captain said, “I think you’ll agree, Captain Orst, it is in the best interest of all the Founding Families that there be no mention of plague and no mention of what was found at this site. As far as my men and I are concerned, Radek died in a fire started most likely by drunken carelessness and which spread quickly, creating chaos and panic and also drawing predators to the area. Pardons and a payment of coin will erase any memory of flaming arrows.”
Captain Nagy holstered the pistol and walked to the door. He opened it long enough to retrieve the gas can he’d ordered put there.
Uncapping it, he moved to the desk and upended it so gas spilled over the computer and canisters and into the drawer. Radek’s body was next.
“We will evacuate at dawn,” Nagy said. “Considering the likelihood there are other caches of bioweapons here, I suspect the Weres will have no objection to us planting ordnances and detonating this excavation site.”
He shook the empty can and tossed it aside. A small smile played at his lips as he turned and faced Orst. “I suspect the Ivanov and Iberá patriarchs together wield enough power to have these lands declared off-limits to humans seeking to run salvage operations in them.”
Rebekka couldn’t read Orst’s expression. She didn’t know how he felt about Nagy’s approach to justice. His voice was without inflection as he asked Aryck, “Is this solution acceptable to the shapeshifters?”
Aryck hardly dared to believe the threat to the Weres could be over and they could resume living as they—
A glance at Rebekka halted the thought. No, not as they always had.
He touched his mind to his father’s, getting the same answer he would have given had he been alpha. “It is acceptable to us. We’ll remain to witness your departure and will follow you to the border of the lands we claim. As long as no one offers us a threat, safe passage is granted.”
“Fair enough,” Orst said.
Captain Nagy pulled a pack of matches from his pocket. Lit one and dropped it into a pool of gasoline on the desk.
It ignited in a whoosh of flame and heat, making the Jaguar snarl and demand retreat. Aryck took Rebekka by the arm and guided her toward the door, but neither of them left until after Nagy set multiple fires and both he and Orst exited ahead of them.
Orst departed to spread news of the evacuation and an agreement with the Weres for safe passage. Nagy gave the same order to the five militiamen but remained with Aryck and Rebekka, escorting them out of the encampment only after the building Radek had occupied had been reduced to smoldering ash and pieces of charred wood.
Aryck led Rebekka away from the gathered Weres, taking her to a small pond surrounded by oak trees draped in Spanish moss. He desperately needed to be alone with her, to celebrate their survival with the touch of flesh to flesh, to lovingly chastise her for scaring him so badly.
Rebekka undressed with the unselfconsciousness of a Were, discarding her clothes and wading into a pond shallow enough to hold some of the day’s heat at its edges, and pockets of warmth a little deeper. Aryck halted her with a hand on her hip, stopping and turning her.
The water settled into smooth calm around them at waist height. Cicadas and crickets and frogs renewed their songs. In the distance, an owl hooted.
“You’re hurt,” Rebekka said, smoothing her fingers over the cuts he’d gotten when he crossed over the concertina wire, then leaning in, taking his breath away as she touched her mouth to his chest and arms, healed him with the brush of her lips and the sensuous wet glide of her tongue.
He’d thought she would revile him for slaughtering the goats. Instead, she’d changed the course of the night and the fate of both Weres and humans. And now she tended to him, treated him as a Jaguar female wearing fur would treat its injured mate.
“I’m sorry—”
Rebekka stopped him by lifting her arms and putting them around his neck. By touching her mouth to his, preferring a different kind of conversation.
Words seemed unnecessary, an intrusion that would shatter the peace of the setting and the time they had together before they had to face questions about their future.
Aryck responded like a man in the grip of a desperate hunger, taking control of the kiss and pulling her against him so tightly their bodies touched in an unbroken connection. Heat poured into her, filling her breasts and turning her nipples into hard, aching knots before sliding into her belly. Her clit. Her labia.