Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Suddenly everything began to come into focus.
“So you’re not with Rickter?” I asked.
Kurt shook his head.
“No, but I had to pretend to be in order to get close to him. I tried to warn you the Council might be planning something! The things you were doing with Delilah gave Rickter the opening he needed to get rid of you!”
“He can’t get rid of me that easily!” I snarled. “I’ll rip his fucking throat out.”
“You’ll get a chance to,” Kurt promised me. “I replaced his can of Wolf’s Bane with one filled with water. But before you go, listen to me.”
“What is it?” I demanded. I was on my feet and pacing impatiently. Because I was my Wolf, my predator’s instincts were sharp and ready to go—I wanted to kill that son of a bitch, Rickter! But what Kurt told me next made me want to kill him even more.
“I found out some things about Rickter you can use in the Council meeting,” he told me. “I’ve been digging into his past, you know?”
“Go on,” I said. Before I made him my second in command, Kurt had been a pretty competent PI and I knew he still did a few jobs on the side. So I trusted any information he had for me.
Kurt took a deep breath.
“I have reason to believe that Rickter was behind the death of your parents,” he told me.
“What?” I demanded, the word coming out as a bark.
“He was at your parents’ house, talking to your Dad right before your parents went out the night they died,” he told me. “I was able to get some of your Dad’s old surveillance tapes and they showed him going into your garage with some kind of box—I think it was a tool box. He must have done something to their brakes.”
“That fucker!” I snarled, all the fur in my ruff standing up on end. “I’ll fucking kill him!”
“That’s not all,” Kurt told me, stopping me from bounding out the door. “I think he’s also behind the deaths of Delilah’s parents as well. His bank records show a huge personal payment made to an unnamed party the day they were killed.”
“So he hired the ‘burglars’ who broke into their house and killed them,” I growled.
Kurt nodded.
“Exactly. And did you know that he offered to adopt Delilah before anyone else? Your Dad overruled it because he didn’t think it was appropriate for a single male with no family to adopt an eleven-year-old girl. But Rickter was very insistent—he got extremely angry and demanded that she be given to him. That was why your Dad stepped in and said he was adopting Delilah into your family instead.”
I didn’t even know what to say to this. The idea that Rickter had killed both my parents and Delilah’s just so he could have her for himself and use her to start some kind of super-Wolf dynasty seemed crazy! But after hearing him talk and seeing the way he looked at Delilah, I was sure it was all true.
“Do you have proof of this?” I asked Kurt.
He nodded. “Got the bank records and the surveillance video, but I don’t know if we’ll have time to show it. You have to face down Rickter at the Council and then join the Ceremony if you want Delilah for yourself.”
I turned my head to one side to look at him.
“So you think I should claim her in front of the Pack as my mate?”
“I don’t think the Unbreakable Laws should apply to the two of you,” Kurt said firmly. “After all, there’s no blood tie between you and it’s clear to anyone who sees you that you belong together.”
“That’s how I feel too,” I growled. “I’m going to claim Delilah tonight—but first I have to deal with that bastard, Rickter.”
“Come on then,” Kurt told me. “The Council is meeting under the trees on the other side of the clearing. We need to be quiet and sneak around the perimeter.”
“Lead the way,” I told him.
He nodded and we slipped out the door together.
18
DELILAH
After the Alphas delivered me to the Elder Bitches—grandmotherly women who help get a ripe Were bitch ready for her Choosing Ceremony—I didn’t know what to do. I thought of trying to run away again, but I was literally surrounded—I could see a ring of wolves guarding the edge of the smaller clearing we were in. I knew for a fact I couldn’t outrun them, so I felt stuck.
“Come now, dearie,” one of the Elder Bitches—a kindly looking woman with a wrinkled face and gray hair said to me. “It’s time to bathe you in the moon pool and get you ready to choose your mate!”
“What if I don’t want to choose a mate!” I exclaimed, I felt like crying. I couldn’t stop thinking of Cole’s limp, shaggy form lying there on the floor of the shack and how he’d told me that he loved me.