Big Bad Bite (14 page)

Rolling her eyes, she stepped towards the
corpse and rolled the dead weight of the body onto its side so that
it was facing away from her. Scanning the length of the body, she
caught the black ink on the back of one of the shifter’s calves.
Sure enough, a raven was depicted with a C. Dropping the body on
its back, she turned to her Uncle. “So what’s with all the
tattoos?”

Logan shook his head in frustration, planting
hands on his trim hips. Dropping his head forward, he analyzed his
booted feet but not before Jenna noticed that his even, white teeth
were biting into his lower lip. A second passed before he snorted,
then muttered, “Worst case scenario, those tattoos means we’re
fucked, an intercontinental clan war is the best case
scenario.”

“Don’t be so dramatic yet, pup.” Uncle Owen
waved his hand in the direction of the dead bodies. “What those
tattoos mean is that all of these men belong to the Corvus Pack.
The raven you see pictured is in honor of Marcus Valerius Corvus’
raven emblem from his Vexillum, or what you might think of as a
flag, that he used as a general for the Roman Army. In fact, Marcus
was gifted with the agnomen, or nickname, of Corvus because legend
says he battled a gigantic Gallic warrior in single combat, and a
raven settled on his helmet as the two combatants approached each
other to fight. The raven then flew off his helmet, distracting the
Gaul and allowing Marcus to deal a killing blow. Corvus literally
means raven.” Turning his head back to stare at one of the bodies,
he pursed his lips in contemplation before he continued, “Anyways,
the Corvus Pack is one of the oldest, strongest, and most ruthless
packs among our kind. It also means that if these men were behind
your little hostage situation last night, to downplay what Logan
just said, we have trouble. The kind of trouble that should not be
discussed out in the open. Let’s head to your place, Jenna, to
finish this.”

She followed her Uncle and brother back
outside, with Kent following closely on her heels. When they
reached their vehicles, Uncle Owen turned to face Kent. “You won’t
be needed, Demon. Return to your little reporter if you like, let
us handle it from here.”

Kent snorted in disgust, “Right. Cause the
consummate all-knowing Pack Master Davies doesn’t need menial
demons around to bother him. I’m sure you know who to contact
around here about questionable movement within the
Others
community in Wilmington, or North Carolina for that matter. You
know, with you living around here and all. Hell, you can probably
walk into any place you want and get that kind of information.
Right?”

Jenna’s eyes practically popped out of her
head at her partner’s scathing, condescending tone. She glared,
looking rather bug eyed at Kent, whom she was suddenly sure was a
perfect candidate for the phrase ‘the lights on, but nobody’s
home’. Then glancing over to her Uncle whom she was doubly sure was
about to rip Kent’s head from his body and play with it as if it
was a basketball. Hell, the vein running across his forehead was
pulsing so hard and fast that it could practically be the beat for
a salsa dance. If Kent wasn’t careful, Uncle Owen was going to do
the Cha Cha on his broken body. It only seemed to get worse as the
seconds ticked by. His eyes started morphing from their normal
grass green color to the vivid, glowing amber that his wolf wore.
She held her breath. Body tense and ready for the moment that was
sure to come, the moment where her Uncle would let his predatory
nature out of its cage, showing Kent exactly what happened when you
pissed off the animal inside the man.

The violence didn’t come though.

Instead, she watched fascinated as the vein
that had been throbbing like a jackhammer across his forehead
slowed down. His eye color phased back to green, and Jenna sighed
in relief. To all the world, he looked perfectly calm now but Jenna
knew he was still agitated when his left eye gave an involuntary
twitch before speaking.

“Come along then, Demon. Let’s see if you can
pull your weight. I suspect that rather large ego of yours is
exceptionally heavy though.”

Kent quipped, “It’s not my ego that is
exceptionally large and heavy.”

Everyone climbed into their respective
vehicles to follow Jenna to her house. She should have been worried
about Kent’s lack of intelligence at smarting off to the most
powerful wolf shifter in the United States, but she wasn’t.

She should have been worried about whether
her Uncle Owen would snap her partner’s neck for getting into a
pissing match with him in a public place. But she wasn’t.

She should have been worried about whatever
the reasons were for having members of a slightly psychotic wolf
pack running amuck in the new city she called home. But she
wasn’t.

No, suddenly Jenna was panicked about two
things.

One, did she have enough food in her house to
feed two overgrown shifter males and a large sneaky demon? Because
she knew shifter appetites bordered on ridiculousness that could
empty a small grocery store once a week, and that was in a word -
scary. But she also had no idea if demons carried the same kind of
appetite, and if they did, then she was in another word - screwed.
Somehow she didn’t think her meager stash of pepperoni slices,
cheese and crackers would go real far.

And two; she really, really hoped that she
had managed to pick up her dirty clothing from around the house.
She had a terrible habit of stripping off offending clothing the
moment she walked through the door. So it wasn’t unusual to see her
bra lying on the living room floor as she made her way to the
shower after getting off a shift from work. She also was not the
tidiest person on the planet. In fact, her Mama had repeatedly
called her a hopeless slob of epic proportions if not kept in
check. The absolute horror of her little brother, whom she didn’t
even know existed until this morning, seeing her bras or panties
was enough to terrify her and humiliate her beyond words.

Because she was quickly discovering that the
possibility of little brothers, even if they appeared to be over
the age of eighteen, seeing your undergarments equaled two
words.

Total mortification.

*****

The house had seemed so much bigger to her
before she parked two shifters and a demon in the living room. Now
with the three
lar
ge-bodied men huddled in
the room, she felt damn near claustrophobic. Her Uncle and brother
were smashed next to each other on her small dove gray loveseat
while Kent occupied her only other sitting option in the room, a
vibrant suede purple tufted armchair. The look of barely suppressed
disgust on his face at having to sit in what he had announced was
“a girly monstrosity that no man should ever have to suffer, in the
house of his newest partner who he expected to have better taste no
less.” At least that was the reason he would give his therapist for
the nightmares he was sure to endure.

Jenna just thought the whole damn thing was
hysterical. In the chair that her Mama had gifted her sat a five
foot eleven inch, two hundred pound, leanly muscled, smooth
talking, lady killer with a easy confidence that landed him firmly
in the egotistical category. But at the moment, a lady killer that
would probably rather abstain from sex for an entire month than sit
in Jenna’s girly chair. She could tell that the only thing that
equaled Kent’s repulsion for her chair was his surprise that she
would even own the chair. Sure, she liked being a cop and generally
did mental happy dances whenever she was able to outperform her
testosterone-laden coworkers who presumed she was going to be more
of a hindrance than a help because of her carrying reproductive
organs. She also liked to play with guns, and could shoot almost
any gun she could get her hands on at an expert level, when most
women would rather get a pedicure than pick up a handgun. But all
of that didn’t mean that she didn’t enjoy some of the feminine
ideals of life. Such as pretty furniture that was also super
comfortable. You’d never catch her with anything pink in her house,
but that purple chair with its lush velvet fabric was her favorite
piece of furniture to curl up in after a long day at work. The fact
that it made her partner uncomfortable to sit in, as if the level
of girliness would rub off on him, was a bonus. He was acting like
it was only a matter of time before someone would walk into the
living room and demand his man card back.

Uncle Owen and Logan enjoyed Kent’s obvious
discomfort for a few minutes before her uncle sat forward and moved
on to business. “Let’s start with what happened last night. Your
team was called in because it was a hostage situation?”

Jenna set the tray of drinks that she had
brought from her kitchen onto the coffee table, then pulled over an
ottoman to sit on as Kent briefed them on the events from the
previous night.

“What did they want in exchange for the
hostages?”

Jenna answered this time, “Ten million
dollars, and safe passage out of the restaurant.”

Her Uncle’s eyebrows shot to his hairline.
“That’s a lot of money, and I can see where money would usually be
a motivating factor, but in this situation that simply doesn’t make
sense to me.”

It was Kent and Jenna’s turn to look
confused. Who wouldn’t want that much money? You could disappear to
any number of places and never be seen or heard from again with
that kind of payload. Not understanding where her Uncle was going,
she asked, “Why not?”

“The Corvus Pack is financially wealthy.
Think about it. Marcus Valerius Corvus was a Roman General, elected
Consul six times, the highest elected position in that time, and
appointed Dictator twice. Even back then he was already wealthy. On
top of that, he has lived for thousands of years. The man was born
in 370 B.C.. With a few well-placed investments, compound interest
and such, he’s always been wealthy. From what I understand, he is
generous enough to spread that wealth to anyone in his Pack. There
should not be a shifter in his group that wants for anything. In
fact, it would make membership to his Pack highly desirable among
the wolf shifter community, but he’s known as a bit of an elitist.
Very choosey about whom he lets in. So why would any member of his
Pack do something so rash, or brazen, as to break laws and possibly
out themselves to the human population for ten million dollars that
they would have to, hypothetically, split eight ways? It just
doesn’t make sense to me.”

She considered the argument. If the Corvus
Pack were as wealthy as they were thought to be, then she could see
her Uncle’s point. If they were active members of the Pack, then
ten million dollars split eight ways wasn’t worth all of the cons
that could be listed against it. First, there was the fact that
they would have broken Pack law. She didn’t know all of them, but
there was one that was utterly obvious in the
Other
community.

Don’t let the humans know what you
are
.

That law alone was usually punishable by
death. Pardons were awarded under extreme circumstances only. For
instance, if you were defending yourself against an attack of some
sort and a human happened to witness it, then you couldn’t help but
keep yourself alive, no matter who the spectators were. The humans
would then either have their memories wiped through hypnosis, a
medication of some sort, or on the rare occasion you knew a
talented witch you could trust, then magic. However, that was if
the human was lucky enough to be in the presence of an
Other
who cared whether the human lived or died. For those with the
unfortunate luck to be in the presence of a less than discerning
Other
, they might have their neck snapped and then depending
on the species of
Other
, consumed so that no evidence was
left behind. She was guessing that this happened a lot more than
she liked to think.

The only other reason that she could think of
for a shifter to be pardoned from a death sentence for exposing
themselves would be if their mate was human. Jenna was learning
through Amy and Adam that the once taboo mating was now more
common-placed than it used to be, out of necessity. There were only
so many of
Other
species to go around. Eventually you needed
new blood, so to speak, to avoid any cross mating between familial
lines. Sometimes fate gave you a human mate to do so.

So, with all of that said, Jenna couldn’t
grasp why any shifter would risk such a public display for ransom
when it would certainly lead them to a death sentence.

Not unless they were walking dead men
anyway.

“What if the eight men were cast out of the
Pack for some reason? Or given a death sentence? Then they wouldn’t
blink at doing something so desperate to survive. Sure, ten million
dollars isn’t a lot of money split eight ways, but if they lived
frugally and hid well, it would help them to get by until they
could find a way to start making money on their own. If the Pack is
living off of Corvus’ funds, then they would be penniless and
desperate for money to survive.”

Logan picked up where his sister left off,
“She has a point. Not many of the Packs have that kind of
lifestyle. The majority of us have enough saved in Pack funds to
take care of our own if emergencies happen and what not, but we
don’t live our lives off of Pack funds. We all have jobs and
support ourselves. So, if you’re a shifter who has been cast out,
or given a death sentence, you have no money but you’re used to a
pampered life where you didn’t have to work for a living, then you
might do something outrageous to fix that. It’s a possibility.”

Uncle Owen ran his hands through his shoulder
length hair, “Well, let’s hope that’s the case. Rogue shifters
would be a lot easier to swallow than the possibility of ulterior
motives. It would make more sense than Corvus trying something in
our territory. He may not be the Pack Master of Europe, but he has
enough territory and influence over there that I couldn’t see any
reason for him wanting to cause trouble for us here in the
States.”