SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(75)
She grabbed her gun and tucked it into her holster, then joined the men in the living room.
As soon as she did, Allan excused himself to change. She thought he would have already done so. She could see how well the men worked together as a pack and as Navy SEALs. No one discussed what they were going to do, just did what needed to be done.
“We were waiting for you both to get changed before we discuss this matter,” Paul said, and she so appreciated that they would.
She fixed them all cups of coffee, and when Allan joined them, they took seats in the living room. Paul had started a fire and the place felt toasty warm, while the cold wind howled through the pine trees surrounding the cabin.
“First off, I’m Vaughn Greystoke, from a pack in Colorado.”
“Devlyn’s pack,” Paul said. “We thought you’d be here sooner.”
“I meant to be. I followed that bastard’s paw prints through the wilderness for weeks as a wolf. No way to check in. Not only is he a danger to our kind, but he left a trail of dead wolves in his wake.”
“Hell. So Sarah managed to turn him,” Paul said.
“Before he murdered her? Yes. Last laugh on him really, because he wanted to get rid of us and now he’s one of us. Well, as in he’s a gray wolf. He’ll never be one of us.”
“Not after he murdered two people and attempted to kill a woman and her baby,” Allan said.
“We have a bit of a problem,” Vaughn said. “Not only is Otis a survivalist and damn good at escape and evasion, but the human police are involved. I’d hoped I could catch up to him in the wilderness and end it. We still have to eliminate him.”
“Agreed,” Paul said. “If you’re here now—”
“He’s returned to the area. He has to be holed up somewhere in the vicinity. Instead of being housebound like Debbie must have been all these weeks, he took off for the wilderness.”
“But he couldn’t have stayed in his wolf form all these weeks, could he?” Debbie asked.
Vaughn eyed her warily. “Could you have? If your life depended on it?”
“You mean if I was out in the snow? No. I went with Allan a few times on runs through the forest, and I didn’t make it all the way back before I had to shift.”
“He might have waited through the week of the full moon, but he’s also been a lupus garou for longer than you have. So he may be able to force himself to remain longer as a wolf. At least until he could reach cabins where he broke in and stayed for a day or so. I found a pattern of breakins. I was always a day behind him, as if he knew someone was following and would leave sooner the next time or stay longer if he could. When he headed back here, I had to see you and warn you that he has returned to the area.”
“What were you doing at the lake if the other hunter killed Lloyd?” Allan asked.
“When Sarah talked to Devlyn and Bella about joining the pack, she stated right away that she was a pacifist. She didn’t believe in killing humans who learned about us.”
“Even if one was trying to kill werewolves?” Allan asked, surprised.
“Devlyn didn’t think to ask about a werewolf hunter, per se, since that’s mostly unheard of. He did ask what she’d do if a human saw her shift and tried to kill her. She said that turning the human would make him see we weren’t evil and change his mind about us. Devlyn disagreed. Since she left, that was the end of any further discussion on the subject. He thought she didn’t want to join us because we would kill men like those.”
“Otis doesn’t seem to have known who our pack members were. Thankfully. So why not come forth with this information earlier?” Paul asked.
“I’ve been playing chase with this bastard. I followed the two women who located Sarah’s body to ensure that Otis hadn’t followed them. If he had, I would have taken him down. Then I followed Debbie from one of the women’s houses—for the same reason. He knows I’m after him. He gave me the slip, but before that, he was headed back here. I thought he intended to target the rest of your pack, but he never knew who the members were. He got sloppy, killing genuine wolves exploring the blood left behind at the scene of Sarah’s murder. He thought they were werewolves.”
“Where were you when Otis shot Tara and Debbie?” Allan asked.
“Across the border in Idaho. I was trying to figure out how Sarah was connected with Otis and Lloyd. I discovered they’d all lived in Idaho and thought maybe he’d returned there.”
Paul told him about Franny and her involvement with Otis and Sarah. “She was from the same area.”
“Okay, so Otis might be after Franny to eliminate her, or maybe to discover who her pack mates are. Or he could be just planning to get his stash and leave for good now that he’s a wolf. I keep thinking his focus will change, now that he’s one of us. But he might be so angry he was changed, he’ll try to infiltrate werewolf packs and kill them. Just on principle. The problem is that he may believe Franny made a fool of him, not only by dumping him and finding someone else, but in knowing werewolves were real. He might think she was laughing behind his back all along. Both her and Sarah.”
“Agreed,” Paul said.
A thought suddenly occurred to Debbie and she turned to Allan. “So that was the reason we went down south to talk to Zeta? Because Sarah had wanted to join your pack?”