Wild Embrace (25 page)

“Ah.” A love triangle could explain the entire thing.

Pack was family, and loyalty was branded into a SnowDancer's bones, but they were also wolves. And wolves in love could be hot tempered, especially when in competition for a lover. Shit happened. Usually not this deadly, however. No question that things might escalate to a bloody fight now and then, but Kenji could think of no other incidence of the cold and apparently premeditated murder of a rival.

“You okay to keep standing guard?” Garnet held Eloise's eyes. “No shame if you want some time out. I don't like being around this kind of violence, either.”

The girl gave her lieutenant a grateful but steady look. “I'll be all right. It was just the shock, you know?” Taking a deep breath, she turned to go back outside. “I won't let anyone in without permission.”

Garnet shut the door behind Eloise, ensuring privacy. “This dead bolt can only be set from the inside.”

Kenji nodded; the dead bolt was an old-fashioned one where the thick metal bolt had to be manually slid across. “No mechanism on the other side.” A separate thumb-scan lock had been added to the door, likely during a denwide upgrade, and it was probably what Russ had used day to day.

“I don't suppose you scent a Psy?” she asked. “A teleporter would make a convenient villain right now.”

Kenji wished he could answer yes to that bleak joke of a question. “No unexpected scents. Aside from me and you, Rev, Lorenzo, and Eloise, the only other scents in this room are of Russ and Shane.” He paused, took another deep breath to confirm his initial reading. “No hint of anyone else—unless I'm missing it? I don't know
Athena.” Even five months away couldn't erase a scent imprint that had been laid down over years.

Garnet rubbed the back of her forearm across her forehead, her gloved hand curled into a fist. “Russ hired a chemical steam cleaner from somewhere and did the whole apartment the week after she moved out. I could smell the disinfectant for a month afterward.” Dropping her arm, she turned her attention to the body. “And that was just when I passed by in the corridor. I don't know how he stood the reek in the apartment itself.”

Kenji stared at the dead man, trying to bring up a memory of this packmate and failing. That wasn't unusual, not with SnowDancer numbering over ten thousand across the territory, with new people mating in and out on a regular basis. Hawke alone knew each and every SnowDancer, though they could all recognize one another by a layer of scent impossible to explain to an outsider except to say that it came from Hawke, an acknowledgment by their alpha that this person was pack.

Accepting that he and Russ had apparently never crossed paths, Kenji walked carefully around the body. “I guess he was hurt, wanted to wipe away all traces of his lover.” Kenji, meanwhile, still had the gift he'd meant to give Garnet seven years earlier, on the night Fate kicked him in the guts, left him bleeding.

His eyes lingered on her as she crouched by the body. The hood of the coveralls hid her hair, but he knew the fine strands would've glinted like spun gold in the artificial sunlight that illuminated the room. “Russ didn't have a new lover?” he asked before the silence could grow too long, betray too much.

A shake of her head. “Not as far as I know.”

He hunkered down on the other side of the body. “This handkerchief. It's feminine.” Carefully tugging at the bunched edges to open it, he found what he was looking for: a delicately embroidered
A
.

Garnet blew out a breath, sorrow darkening the sky blue of her eyes. “Russ,” she murmured softly, “you've finally managed to surprise me.” Her gaze skimmed to where Shane's body had lain, paused. “No, it definitely can't have been Shane's unless they fought over it. Looks like Russ was clutching it in his hand, pressed it to his wound, and it fell from his hand when he collapsed.”

It seemed very high drama to Kenji, but again, this was a wolf they were talking about. Pressed white shirt and razor-creased pants or not, Russ had still been born with the same primal drives as any SnowDancer. He might've erased Athena from his home, but he'd clearly failed at erasing her from his heart.

Sound familiar, Tanaka?

No,
he answered the mocking voice in his head.
I never tried to erase my love for Garnet. I'll be buried with her name on my heart.

“Lorenzo will have to check,” he said, a surge of aged emotion turning his voice husky, “but far as I can tell, Russ was stabbed once in the heart and bled out where he lay.”

“Blood follows gravity.” Garnet pointed out the dark, dark spots of blood on the carpet below Russ's chest, as well as the thin trail of red down his side that indicated he hadn't moved after collapsing. “Unless it was a lucky fatal stab, it seems he had plenty of time to go for help. Might be he hit his head when he fell.”

Kenji looked around, saw no evidence Russ had tried to crawl to the door. “You want me to check the part of his head that's against the carpet?”

Garnet frowned in thought, finally said, “No, leave it. I want Lorenzo to have first go at the body. He should be back soon, unless there's more wrong with Shane than a concussion.”

Getting to his feet with a nod, Kenji walked over to look at the knife. “Fancy hilt.” Scrolling patterns on the metal, a green jewel at the tip.

“Shit.” Garnet gritted her teeth as she came to join him, her dominance a pulse under her skin and her worry tension across her shoulders. “Shane collects knives. He's done it for years.”

Wolf and man, both parts of Kenji wanted desperately to comfort Garnet, to take some of the weight, but he knew she'd push him away the instant he made the offer. This was her den, her responsibility. “Wolves aren't immune to stupidity or jealousy,” he reminded her, his own jealousy a snarling monster held barely in check. “You can't keep them safe from their own choices.”

A flinty glance, the blue of her eyes unimpressed. “You'd feel responsible, too, if this was your territory.”

“Yeah, well, being a lieutenant doesn't save a wolf from idiocy, either.” He made himself break the eye contact before she saw too much. “It's not looking good for Shane, is it?”

“Seems a slam dunk. Door locked from the inside. A man who died where he fell. Another man found unconscious nearby with the murder weapon.”

Kenji's skin prickled. “Then why don't you sound convinced?”

Garnet forcibly relaxed
her jaw when a tension ache alerted her to how tightly she'd clenched it. “Shane is a sweet, kind man,” she told Kenji. “If this had been the other way around, I'd have believed it, but Shane stabbing Russ?” She felt her hair stick rubbing against the hood of the coveralls as she shook her head.

“Russ was a hothead?”

“No, he was just . . . rigid. That's the word.” Garnet didn't want to speak ill of the dead, but she needed to fill Kenji in on the context around this entire inexplicable scene. “He taught high-level math. University stuff. I often got the feeling he would've liked to arrange people like he did his math equations—all neat and tidy and contained.”

“Born that way?”

“No, not like what you're thinking.” Garnet would've understood a mind that simply functioned differently, accepted it. “Russ
chose
to look down on others and to consider himself above most of his packmates. And, after Athena left him, he chose to be bitter and to stew in his anger rather than accepting the comfort offered by friends and family.” None of that meant he'd deserved to be murdered.

No one
deserved to have his or her life stolen.

She lifted her hand to pinch her nose between two fingers,
dropped it when she remembered she was wearing gloves. “Damn it, Kenji. Shane is a good man, and he's really good for Athena.”

“Nothing's set in stone yet.” Kenji's voice was tempered and his vision obviously clear for being unclouded by personal connections. “No use worrying about it until you know for sure.”

It was exactly the advice she needed at that moment.

Nodding, she said, “Let's walk through the rest of the apartment, take the samples we need. We'll check DNA everywhere, in case we're wrong and someone else was here.”

They'd just finished the detail-oriented task when the door opened to reveal Lorenzo. “Am I okay to come in, examine the body?” the healer asked, his gaze lingering first on Garnet then on Kenji.

She knew what he was doing: checking on their emotional and mental well-being. That was part of his role in SnowDancer because, as had become apparent during the Territorial Wars of the eighteenth century, a messed-up dominant at the helm could wreck the equilibrium of hundreds, possibly thousands. Lara played the same role in the Sierra Nevada den, had the authority to overrule even Hawke when it came to their alpha's physical, mental, or emotional health.

“Yes.” Garnet pulled down her mask, pushed off the hood. “We've recorded and sampled everything.” Waiting until Lorenzo was inside, she asked him to check if Russ had a head wound.

“Let me see.” Gently lifting their fallen packmate's head, the healer said, “No blood below.” He ran his gloved fingers over Russ's scalp, taking his time and covering every inch of the skull. “No obvious contusions, though I can't absolutely confirm until I have him on the autopsy table.”

Frustration gnawed at Garnet. If Russ hadn't been knocked out, why hadn't he tried to get help? All he'd have had to do was crawl a
few feet to the door, bang on it. “Shane?” He was the only one who might have the answers.

“Unconscious.”

“Would Russ's wound have been immediately fatal?” Kenji asked, his thoughts no doubt mirroring hers.

Lorenzo bent over the chest wound, the silver in his hair a genetic trait that had little to do with his age. “I'll do a full examination once I get him out of here,” he said after a minute, “but, given the type of blade, I have a suspicion the knife might've hit the thoracic aorta. That could've had an instant effect, depending on the severity of the transection.”

Lorenzo indicated the wound. “There's too little blood for a fatal stabbing,
unless
the blood has collected in the chest cavity.” He leaned in closer, seeming to be paying particular attention to Russ's neck. “The position of the body makes that hard to confirm with a hundred percent certainty on a surface examination, but I'll know as soon as I open him up on the autopsy table.”

Kenji, his own hood pushed back, mask down, folded his arms. “Cut to the aorta sounds like a precision hit.” His green eyes were like chips of clear jade. “That would require seriously cold blood.”

“Anyone can get lucky—or unlucky. And remember,” Lorenzo warned, “it's speculation at this point.” Face gentling as he turned back to Russ, he reached out to touch his fingers to the other man's closed eyelids. “No life should end this way.”

No, Garnet thought, her resolve ironclad: regardless of how much she liked Shane, if he'd done this, then he'd pay in blood. That was pack law and it existed for a reason—because they weren't human, they were changeling; they were wolf.

Her eyes met Kenji's . . . and the wolf that was her other self, it lunged against her skin, its most primal instincts unleashed by the
events of the morning. It wanted to claw him bloody, to take payment in kind for the hurt he'd caused, the bond he'd rejected . . . and it wanted to pin him down, bite him in an aggression that had nothing to do with vengeance.

Garnet hauled back the wildest part of herself with gritted teeth, managed to regain control. Waiting until after Lorenzo had left with Russ's body, she turned to the man she should've forgotten long ago. Puppy love, nothing more. Only it had never been so simple between her and Kenji and he'd damn well known it. When he'd rejected her, he'd rejected a promise so precious, she'd never truly forgive him for it.

“You have any luck scanning the knife for prints?” she asked, her voice calm through a rigid effort of will. Because if there was one thing she wouldn't do, it was let Kenji Tanaka see the depth of the injury he'd inflicted.

“Yes. One set,” he said, holding up the slim scanner from the forensics kit. “A little smeared, but clear enough for comparison.”

“I'll have Revel check if we have Shane's on file. If not, it'll be easy enough to get a set.” That was when she suddenly remembered an incident that had her spine going stiff and her wolf baring its teeth.

Kenji's entire body went predator-still, as if she'd spoken her dark thoughts aloud. “What?”

“Russ and Shane got into it two weeks ago.” Garnet hadn't witnessed the exchange, but she'd received a detailed report from one of her senior people who'd broken it up. “Russ tracked Shane down on the job one day, confronted him about ‘stealing' Athena away. No blows exchanged but only because cooler heads prevailed.”

Putting the evidence bag that held the knife to one side and powering down the print scanner, Kenji raised an eyebrow. “Did Shane steal Athena?” The slight sardonic edge in his tone made his opinion of Russ's accusations clear: dominant or submissive, wolf females made up their own minds.

As had Athena.

“Athena should've left Russ long ago.” Garnet and Lorenzo had both been concerned enough about the relationship to keep a close eye on the former couple.

Kenji's jaw was suddenly a brutally hard line. “We talking abuse?”

“No. I would've put a stop to that at once.” Being in a pack meant living by pack rules. One of those rules was no abuse of any kind against another.

“Then?” The silken strands of Kenji's hair slid against one another as he turned toward her.

The familiar angles and contours of his face came as a small shock each time—he was so gorgeous with his high cheekbones and pretty green eyes and she couldn't keep from noticing, no matter how hard she tried. But of course, it had never been about Kenji's looks.

“Athena's this artistic, slightly flighty, but very sweet woman,” she said instead of lingering on the strong line of Kenji's neck, because that way lay dangerous temptation. “She's gifted, no question about it. Her pencil drawings are incredible.” Garnet had one hanging in her quarters. “But Russ, he controlled her. Wouldn't even ‘allow' her to have a little show for packmates.”

Muscles taut, she shook her head. “I took her aside any number of times to ask her if she wanted out, but she always patted my hand and said she understood how Russ thought and that they were happy.”

Garnet blew out a breath, dropped her hands to her sides. “I had to accept that, since she's an adult wolf and there was nothing actionable in Russ's behavior.” The truth was that the heart wasn't always sensible or logical or rational. If it had been, Garnet would've forgotten her personal green-eyed weakness long ago.

“It wasn't even a hierarchy thing,” she said, intuiting Kenji's next
question. “They had about the same level of dominance.” Russ hadn't been controlling Athena through her wolf. “Just a case of bad taste, I guess.” Her gaze met Kenji's. “Woman like Athena, once she makes a choice about a man, she's stubborn enough to stick to it no matter how bad the situation is for her.”

Those beautiful shoulders tensed, Kenji's response holding the edge of a growl. “Seems to me she made a choice to stay. And when the situation became toxic, she walked away.”

Garnet had never walked away—Kenji hadn't given her that chance. And even now, she wanted to ask him why. The question had dug into her brain for years. They'd been friends. If he'd had cold feet about a possible relationship, why hadn't he just told her? Why hurt her? Why create a distance between them that had remained unbridged until they both became lieutenants and had to find a way to deal with one another?

They'd settled on biting wit, sarcasm, and razor-edged flirtation.

“So,” Kenji said when she stayed silent, his voice still rough. “We've done everything we can here. You want to have another look around before we leave?”

“Yes.” Suiting action to words, she began to cover the room, but there wasn't much in the living area aside from the furniture she'd already noted, including the small glass-fronted display cabinet that held honors Russ had won in his field. He'd stripped the cabinet of all traces of his life with Athena, including the photos that had once fought for space atop it, while Athena had taken the sampler she'd made for the wall above.

Garnet had seen the room's pre-breakup state the times she'd spoken to Athena while Russ was away at work. She'd talked to Russ, too, made it clear she was unimpressed by his controlling attitude toward his lover.

His response echoed in her memory.

“I would never hurt Athena.” Face stiff and shoulders squared, he'd ground out the words. “Just because our relationship isn't what you think it should be doesn't give you the right to interfere.”

Garnet had been forced to concede that Russ did love Athena. It hadn't been a warm, generous love. No, it had been small and jealous and suffocating, but it had been a kind of love nonetheless. That understanding was why Garnet had made certain an older packmate checked in on Russ after the breakup—she'd known he wouldn't talk to her, but she'd hoped he'd confide in a peer who was a friend.

He hadn't, had shut down all efforts to offer comfort or friendly companionship.

Chest aching because Russ would now never have the chance to make another choice, she walked out of the living area and down the hallway to his bedroom.

She saw nothing she hadn't seen earlier.

The bed was messed up, but there was no smell of sex. Just two masculine scents—Russ's and Shane's. Given their relationship, the only thing they were likely to have been doing in here was fighting. Sheets were tangled and half pulled off the bed and there were holes in the internal walls.

Like the main SnowDancer den, Garnet's den was hewn out of stone, but the internal rooms were created much the same as rooms anywhere. Russ's apartment was near the center of the den, which meant only the floor was stone; Russ had placed carpet over that. The same pale shade as in the living room, the carpet nonetheless clearly showed the flecks of white paint and fragmented shards from the damaged walls.

Rubbing a fleck between her fingers, Garnet had a thought. “Kenji,” she said without raising her voice, “did you notice if either Russ or Shane had broken skin on his knuckles?”

He answered from Russ's study. “Russ, yeah. Not sure about Shane.”

Making a note to check that, she continued to examine the room. She even forced herself to go through the cupboards and drawers again. It was in the lowest drawer that she found a photo of Athena; Russ had hidden it facedown under a stack of math papers . . . but he'd kept it. “Ah, hell.”

People were so damn complicated.

•   •   •

Kenji
exited the study and went to stand in the doorway to the bedroom. He could've gone elsewhere, but he wanted to watch Garnet work, wanted to drink her in. As it was, her scent sank into his cells between one breath and the next. Or that was what it felt like. As if she was already branded into his skin, a place only a lover or a mate had the right to be.

His gut twisted.

He'd sell his soul to have the right to call her either one of those two words.

“I still can't make heads or tails of his study,” he said, going to shove his hair back only to realize he was still gloved. That hand, when he paused it midmove, held the finest tremor. Yeah, it wasn't getting any easier to ignore the violent pull inside him when it came to Garnet. “It's all math stuff. I don't think it was disturbed—he was so neat, any search would be obvious.”

“Russ's been tutoring a couple of grad students.” Closing the drawer she'd been examining, Garnet got to her feet with a grace that seemed more akin to the cats than to a wolf. She'd always been like that, lithe and fluid and beautiful in motion.

“Once we've confirmed the sequence of events,” she said, “I'll have the students help Athena go through the study.”

Folding his arms, Kenji leaned against the doorjamb. “You think she'll want to?”