The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(53)

“She’d gotten lost,” was all I said now. “Taken a wrong turn on a dark night and wound up in the wrong place.” But her ending had been so brutal. “It looked like she’d been mugged. My mom had been shot at least four times, and her blood stained the ground under her.” So much blood. Her mother had been crawling back toward her car. She’d never made it inside again.

“Y-you found her?”

My dad had tried to stop me from finding her, but I’d been desperate, so filled with certainty that something was wrong. “Yeah.” The guilt was still there. Would always be. “I was too late to help her, though.”

Cassidy’s hand reached for me. Her fingers curled around mine. “It’s not easy…what you do, is it?”

I could only shake my head. “I just wanted to be in time for Granny Helen. Just once.”

But death had beaten me again.

The floor creaked behind me, and my head lifted. Dad stood in the doorway, and I wondered how much he’d heard. His face was blank, his eyes hooded. He didn’t talk about mom or that night—ever.

My dad liked to forget the past. I knew it wasn’t possible to forget.

I tightened my fingers around Cassidy’s. “You’re not alone,” I told her, meaning the words. “And it’s going to hurt and it’s going to suck for weeks, months.” Years. “But you’re strong, and you will get through this.”

She hadn’t seen my dad. Her eyes were just on me. “How do you know I’m strong?” There was such doubt in her voice. “I’m not like you. I can’t do the things that you do. There’s nothing special about me, I’m just—”

“Helen’s grand-daughter,” I said firmly. “And since she was so very special, I think you have to be, too.”

Cassidy blinked. “Y-yeah, I am her grand-daughter.”

“And you can be as strong as she was.” A fighter, right until the end.

She nodded slowly.

I rose. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”

The covers rustled as she settled back on the couch. I took a few steps away from her.

“Anna?”

I stopped. My gaze met my dad’s.

“Why do you think she was in the woods tonight? Her shop—it looked like a wreck, but how did she get way out here?”

“My dad will find out,” I said, and he nodded. “Don’t worry, Cass,” I told her. “He’ll give her justice.”

Even if he had to tear the town apart to do it. I knew my dad, and I knew he wouldn’t stop, not until he’d taken down the monsters.





Chapter Thirteen


I stayed with Cassidy until her aunt arrived to pick her up. Tall, lean, Rhonda Colter looked like a slightly softer version of her son, James. And James was there to pick up Cassidy, too. He grabbed her in a big hug and held on as tight as he could.

“An animal?” I heard Rhonda ask my dad. “An animal killed my mother?”

He gave a slow nod.

Her eyes squeezed shut. “Sometimes, I hate this town.”

I could understand her feelings.

But when she reached for Cassidy, her face softened. “Come on, sweetie, everything will be all right.”

Cassidy didn’t particularly look like she believed her.

They drove away slowly, and I watched them until their car vanished.

“I’m going into the woods today.”

I glanced over at my dad’s quiet voice.

“I’ll be taking Charles with me.” If he was going into the woods, he had to be talking about taking the ranger, Charles Channing—Rafe’s father. “We’re going to do some tracking,” he said simply, and I knew that he really meant they’d be doing some hunting.

I followed him back into the house. Watched as he went into his closet and took out a rifle. And a small, black box that he’d kept hidden on the top shelf. He opened the box, and I saw the gleaming bullets.

Silver bullets.

“The stories about werewolves only changing under the full moon are just bull, huh?” I asked.

He grunted. “Hollywood hype. They can turn anytime. They’re just stronger when the sun sets.”

Nice to know.

“And when the full moon rises,” he glanced at me with a glittering gaze, “they’re damn near unstoppable. Stronger, faster, and one hell of a lot more dangerous.”

I swallowed.

“If you’re hunting, it’s better to hunt them when they’re weak.”

“Makes sense to me,” I murmured. Then, because I had to know, I said, “Is this—are the wolves the reason you left Haven?”

He slid a silver bullet into the chamber. “I wanted a normal life for you. When I found out your mom was pregnant, we both wanted that.”

I’d done the math before. I’d seen my parents’ marriage certificate. I knew they’d gotten married because my mom had been pregnant with me. But I also knew they’d loved each other. “So you moved to Chicago.”

He nodded and pushed another bullet inside his weapon. “Your grandmother was so angry with us, she stopped talking to me. Said I was abandoning my heritage.”

I glanced around the quiet house. “Just what is our heritage?” My mom had visited Granny Helen, and she’d believed in witchcraft. Did that really make her…a witch? No, no, just because you asked questions, it didn’t mean—