Wild Embrace (27 page)

Cupping her packmate's face in her hands, Garnet spoke to woman and wolf both. “You know I'll be fair,” she said. “To do that, I have to know all the facts.”

Face crumpling even as her eyes turned the yellow of her wolf, Athena gave a staccato nod. “Julie c-can show you the k-key . . .”

Garnet glanced at Kenji. Putting his own coffee beside hers, he left with Julie while Garnet tugged Athena close and held her tight.

“I n-n-never meant for this to happen,” Athena said, her voice muffled against Garnet's neck. “I just . . . couldn't live inside a box anymore.” She drew back, raised her hand to her mouth. “I n-never th-thought—”

“Hey.” Garnet took Athena's hand away from her mouth, tipped up her chin. “No wolf in my den is
ever
going to be made to feel guilty for the actions of another.” Even as she spoke, she was telling herself to take her own damn advice. “You just remember that this entire scenario involves adults. Part of being an adult is making our own decisions. You didn't make either Shane or Russ do anything. Understood?”

Athena nodded jerkily just as Julie returned. Leaving the generally more pragmatic and steady woman to sit with Athena, Garnet went to join Kenji in the small room that functioned as a combined art studio and hobby area. Seeing her, Kenji opened a closet at the back to reveal a tall set of drawers with a glass display case on top. The knives within the case were obviously much older and far more ornate than the one that had been used on Russ.

“You go through the drawers?” she asked him.

“No, I figured you'd want to be here for that.” He pulled open the first slender drawer.

The two of them examined the contents in silence, moved on to the next.

“Damn.” Garnet's breath got stuck in her chest, each inhalation as sharp as the blades in front of them—because there was a gap. Arranged smallest to largest, each knife in this set had a green jewel in the hilt, as well as distinctive scrollwork.

Kenji took out his phone, pulled up a photograph of the murder weapon. “Perfect match.”

Folding her arms, Garnet stared at the accusatory gap in the blue velvet of the drawer lining, but it had no more secrets to tell. “Let's go see if Revel's matched the fingerprints—I asked him to take care of it on my way back from the infirmary.”

Locking the case, Kenji pocketed the key. “I think we should lock up the whole studio. Just in case.”

“Good idea.” It turned out the door to the studio had a never-used thumb-scan lock that Garnet programmed to respond to only her or Kenji.

The living room was empty when the two of them returned to it. She followed Athena's scent to the bedroom, where she found the artistic woman lying down while Julie patted her back. Catching Julie's eye, Garnet motioned that they were leaving.

Before she could step away from the doorway, however, Athena sat up. Shoving her curls out of her face, she said, “Can I see Shane?” It was a plea.

“No, I'm sorry, Athena. No one can speak to Shane until I've had a chance to interview him.” She'd swung by her quarters and picked up her phone earlier, aware Lorenzo would alert her the instant Shane began to show signs of consciousness. “I'll tell you as soon as I'm done; you have my word.”

Athena's face threatened to crumple again. She was a sweet and
talented wolf with a gentle heart but she wasn't the strongest of them. So when she squared her shoulders and set her jaw, Garnet's own wolf looked at her with new eyes.

Love, it seemed, could make warriors out of even the most fragile.

“I don't believe it.” Athena's voice was fierce. “I don't think Shane would hurt Russ. He's just not built that way.” Yellow wolf eyes locked with Garnet's in a show of truly unexpected strength. “You do this right, Jem. You find the truth.”

Kenji saw the
renewed lines of strain around Garnet's mouth as they left Athena and Shane's quarters, and though his wolf snarled, wanting to take care of things, he knew there was nothing he could do but back her. Even had she been his, it was all he could've done—Garnet would allow nothing else.

The thought had just passed through his head when a pack of pups in wolf form ran down the corridor, clearly racing. He knew without asking that they were breaking the rules, but with it being so wet outside, all the den kids were probably going stir-crazy.

He'd certainly broken this particular rule more than once as a pup.

Garnet didn't stop or censure them. Laughing in open delight, she stood in place as they streamed around and through her spread legs. Looking at the pack of brown-furred bodies, Kenji noted the tiny one at the back who was determined to keep up but falling behind. The runt of the group.

Garnet had been like that. Tiny and fierce and refusing to be left behind.

Not stopping to question his instincts, he tugged off his necklace and dropped it on the floor. It was unlikely the shift would cause any damage to something as solid as the pendant, but he wasn't about to take the chance.

A second later, he shifted and raced to grab the huffing and trailing pup in his mouth, taking a firm grip halfway along the pup's small body. Then he loped after the other little ones, racing past them to the far end of the corridor, where he put down his tiny burden. Turning, the pup bounced and yipped at Kenji excitedly, and when his friends skated to a stop in front of him, their tiny claws scratchy on the stone, Kenji's pup made a noise that in human form would've been a smug raspberry.

Chuckling inside at having given the pup one victory at least, Kenji left them to their boisterous play and padded back to Garnet. Who had her hands on her hips and was trying to look stern. “All the parents are trying to teach this lot not to shift while in their clothes, and there you go, setting a bad example.”

He pretended to bite her leg.

She laughed . . . and then her hand, it was in his fur, gripping lightly as she crouched down in front of him. “Your room's on the way to my office.” Affection in her words, in her touch as she ran her free hand through his fur. “You can get fresh clothes.”

Looking into eyes gone a wolfish gold, his own wolf's heart beat huge and hard inside its chest. That wolf, too, loved her. And that wolf, too, knew they had to let her go. But the animal was closer to its primal self, possessiveness in its veins.

Tugging out of her hold before that primal heart could give in, he nipped at her jaw.

“Kenji!” She laughed again, and the sound, it was like warm rain over his senses.

When she growled playfully and threatened to nip at his nose in vengeance, he danced out of reach and would've loped off toward his room. Except the pups had seen them tussling and ran excitedly back to join in the play. So of course he tumbled with them while
Garnet let tiny pups climb all over her, her eyes bright and her hands gentle on their squirmy little bodies.

He finally slipped away—his grandfather's pendant gripped carefully in his teeth—when the now happily exhausted pups started curling up to nap right there in the corridor, piling on top of one another to snuggle in. He knew they'd be fine—during rainy days in particular, he'd often had to avoid more than one furry bundle in the corridors of his own den. Their caretakers would eventually track them down and carry them back to the nursery.

Once in his room, he decided to leave off the pendant since he'd broken the rawhide tie when he took it off. Shifting, he ran the smoothness of it between his finger and thumb for a second, his heart clenching as he remembered the bighearted, loving man who'd given it to him. He was glad his grandfather had never known the long-term repercussions of the joyous trip on which he'd taken Kenji when Kenji was a boy. It would've killed the older man.

Breathing past the ache of a grief that still caught him unawares sometimes when he thought of his grandfather, he was in a fresh pair of jeans and a white T-shirt by the time Garnet made it to outside his room. Reaching out to ruffle his hair, she said, “You lost the colors.”

He'd bent instinctively so she could reach, had to force himself to straighten. “I feel naked. Like my butt's showing.”

Dimple appearing, she pulled out a glitter pen from her pocket. “Want me to go wild?”

His shoulders shook at the gleam in her eye. “Where did you get that?”

•   •   •

“Found
it in the break room before our meeting, meant to drop it off with the school supplies.” Slipping the pen back into her pocket,
Garnet curled her fingers into her hands, the sensation of Kenji's hair against her palm a living memory. Warm silk, heavy and glossy. “You're still good with kids.” She'd always thought he'd make an incredible father if he'd only stop his crash-and-burn approach to relationships.

“My mom says it's because I'm half-pup myself.” The dangerous, heartbreaker smile that creased his cheeks made it clear he didn't consider that an insult. “You still intending to have as many as you can?”

She blinked at the realization that he'd remembered her dreams, but then, Kenji had a habit of remembering things she'd said to him . . . and vice versa. As a teen, he'd once found her an out-of-print comic book for her collection after she mentioned it exactly once. Not long afterward, she'd tracked down a particular candy bar he wanted to eat.

They'd always taken care of one another in small ways, right up to the night Kenji had broken them in two. Hurting and angering her so much that she'd been blinded by it.

“Yep,” she said, her resolve to figure out the mystery of that night set in stone—she'd know the truth before Kenji left the den. And if that truth was a painful one, if Kenji had simply changed his mind and no longer cared about her, so be it. But given his behavior today, she didn't think the answer was so simple.

“You always used to say ten was a good number.” His smile deepened and yes, there was no one more gorgeous than Kenji Tanaka when he smiled that way.

“I might've been a little off base there.” Her dry response made him chuckle; the sound, it sank into her bones, made them ache. “But three or four, absolutely.”

Kenji rocked back on his heels, his thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his jeans. The action pulled his T-shirt across his chest, defined the ridged planes of his body. “With your family's track
record of fertility, I figure you're gonna hit a home run soon as you find your man”—was there a hitch there, a subtle tightening of his facial muscles?—“and start making the attempt.”

Continuing to watch him with a care she'd avoided for years, Garnet said, “I'm hoping.” Ruby and Steele weren't Garnet's only siblings—she had six others, a near-impossible number in changeling terms. Four sets of twins, plus Garnet.

“Ruby's definitely carrying one, right?” Kenji's tone had an odd undertone she couldn't quite decipher. “I didn't miss another set of Sheridan twins?” he added as they began to walk side by side, Kenji automatically shortening his stride to accommodate hers.

“Definitely one this time.” Fur ruffled by what she'd sensed in his voice, Garnet turned to look at him, came up against a wall of good humor.

Her eyes narrowed.

Kenji had been good at hiding things as a child, too, had learned to do so in the midst of the war zone that had been his parents' relationship. Why hadn't she remembered that at twenty-one? Because, she admitted, she'd been young and inexperienced, a dominant predatory changeling swimming in hormones, her pride a touchy thing. She'd also been more than a little in love with Kenji Tanaka.

She'd wanted to claw Kenji bloody. Pride alone had stopped her.

Kenji had been a couple of years older. Old enough to have predicted her response . . . to have counted on it?

“My brother Jasper,” she said, her brain gnawing at the issue like a wolf with a bone, “you remember him?”

“Sure. He's in Alexei's sector.”

“His mate is carrying twins. They're ecstatic.”

Kenji's grin sliced through her heart. “I hadn't heard. I'll have to give him a call. What's a good gift for twin pups?”

There he went again, being the amazing, generous boy she'd
grown up with instead of the daredevil lothario he'd become in his early twenties. “Nothing matchy-matchy,” she warned him. “According to Jas, he's still scarred from his matchy-matchy childhood.”

Kenji's chuckle went straight through her, making the tiny hairs on her arms prickle. “I remember how your brothers would constantly want to swap clothes with me and their other friends. We got the best of the bargain, though.”

Shoving down her primal response to him once more, Garnet nodded. “Mom's an amazing tailor.” One who was secretly working on three adorable baby tuxedos—one for Ruby's pup, two for Jasper's pups. “This is my office.”

Revel was at the computer behind the dark wood of her desk when they entered. “Fingerprints on the knife are a match to Shane's,” he said as soon as they shut the door behind themselves, his face set in harsh lines. “I ran the program twice to be sure there was no mistake.”

Garnet's gut tensed—but dealing with the tough and the hard was part of a lieutenant's job. Folding her arms, she set her feet apart. “Show me the location of the prints.” Something about them had been niggling at her ever since she took a quick look at the scan of the murder weapon before assigning Revel the task of identifying the prints.

Revel put up the images on the large screen on the back wall of her office. Then, coming around to the front of the desk, he pointed out the four slightly smeared but readable prints on the handle of the blade. “Perfect.” He paused, his hands on his hips. “Honestly, it's a little too perfect. If the room hadn't been locked from the inside, I'd be tempted to say planted.”

Kenji moved closer to the screen, the artificial sunlight making his hair gleam blue-black. “This knife is pristine except for those four prints. The others we saw in the set all had smudges, signs of repeated handling.”

“Shane did handle them.” Garnet had visited with him over his collection about three months back, curious to see an ancient knife another packmate had described to her. “He enjoyed sharing his hobby with others, talking about the history of the knives.” She could still remember how his square-jawed face had glowed as he spoke about the workmanship, the hands through which each blade had passed.

To Shane, it was about the art rather than the utility of the blades as weapons.

She took a few steps forward, until she stood with Rev on one side, Kenji on the other. Both strong. Both intelligent. Both blood loyal to SnowDancer. Both beautiful. But only one made her heart thunder and her blood grow hot and her temper fire as violently as her passion.

Damn it.

Gritting her teeth, she focused on the blade that had taken a man's life. “None of that means he didn't clean this knife,” she said slowly, “but even if he did wipe it down, he'd have had to have picked it up from his collection, hidden it on himself somewhere.”

She glanced at Revel. “Did Lorenzo mention spotting gloves in Shane's pockets?” The healer would've removed the clothing to ensure he didn't miss an injury, but it had the side effect of preserving evidence.

“Give me a sec.” Revel made the call to the infirmary, shook his head after a short delay. “Lorenzo just went and checked. No gloves.”

Kenji, who'd been staring at the prints the entire time, picked up a thick black marker from Garnet's desk and closed his fingers over it.

“Yes.” Revel's rich brown eyes were intent on Kenji's grip. “If we put aside the oddness of the weapon not having any other prints, Shane's are
precisely
where they'd be if he closed his hand over the hilt to use it.”

Garnet's gut churned; they were missing something, of that she was certain. “Kenji, you mind lying on the floor in the same position as Shane?”

Eyes dark and lips set in an unsmiling line, an expression she'd rarely seen on his face, Kenji arranged himself on the colorful woven rug she'd placed over the stone. Garnet knelt beside him once he stopped moving, put the marker in his hand, and closed his fingers over it.

Revel, having hunkered down on the other side, whistled. “Flawless match to the type of prints on the knife. You think Shane was set up?”

“I think things aren't adding up.” Anger licked through her veins at the idea of being played for a fool, with a man's life as the stakes. “We need to talk to Athena again, find out who else might have had access to that particular knife.”

•   •   •

Kenji
pushed up to his feet. Garnet and Revel rose with him.

“Check in with Lorenzo,” Garnet said to her right-hand man. “See if he's learned anything new from Russ's body.”

“Will do.” Flicking her a quick, playful salute, Revel left.

Kenji knew he should shut it, but his brain couldn't control whatever stupid part of his anatomy was driving his mouth. “I thought you two were dating.”

A flicker in the glorious blue of Garnet's eyes. “I see you keep up with pack gossip.”

“I'm a faithful listener of
Deja's Delici-News
.”

Snorting at his mention of the packmate who had a wickedly funny nighttime show on the packwide radio station, she said, “Whether we're dating or not, I'm still the lieutenant in charge of this den.”

“Yeah, but there are times for the hierarchy, and there are times
to haul your lover close and kiss the life out of her.” Wolf changelings, especially the dominants, weren't exactly known to be shy or concerned about public displays of affection,
especially
when in the presence of another changeling who might be a threat to their claim on a lover.