Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“Are you here to confess that your husband is behind this?” A woman with short gray hair gets to her feet. Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying. “My grandson is dead because of you!” She lets out a low growl and several other wolves join in.
“Quiet!” Larkin says, eyes flashing yellow. “I want justice as much as any of you, but we have to take down the right culprit.”
“You’re saying it’s not the vampires?” another wolf asks.
“It’s not,” I say, and apprehensively take a few steps forward. Staying by the door gives me a clear shot at an emergency exit. “Not the Malus vampires at least. Delphi told me a vampire sold the drugs to your kids, and I’m so sorry for what happened. No parent should have to lose a child. But can I tell you with absolute certainty that Xavier is not bringing drugs into the city.”
“You said she’s here to help,” another wolf shouts. “How the fuck is this helping?”
“Because I might know who’s behind this,” I say. “Or at least I’ve found a strange connection.” The energy is still dark and heavy and full of grief. Their anger is palpable and justified. Two kids died of overdoses because the drugs were laced with carfentanil. They never stood a chance once that entered their system.
“Are you going to fucking tell us?” the same wolf shouts.
“If you take it down a notch, I will,” I quip and he growls in response. Once he settles down, I take a few more steps inside. “You’ve probably seen the news reporting an increase in overdoses in the city.”
“We have,” Larkin answers for the pack.
“That is true, the drugs are being laced with deadly ingredients and they’re being made more widely available. But half of these deaths aren't because of overdoses. The people did have some drugs in their system when they died, but they died because of demonic possession.”
No one talks for several seconds.
“Demons?” the crying woman echoes.
“Yes,” I tell her. “A human body can’t handle demonic possession for long before it starts to break down. The demon is quite literally burning up their body from the inside out. Death from demonic possession doesn’t make medical sense. The victims can appear to have aged rapidly while they’ve rotted from the inside out. I think demons are doing something—I don’t know what—and are using drugs as a coverup for burning through bodies. Most of the victims have been homeless, people others usually don’t even give a second thought to. They don’t have the family to demand their deaths be looked into further, so blaming it on drugs is an easy way out.”
The room goes quiet again and this time, hearing my own words spoken out loud sends a chill through me. It’s an almost perfect coverup, really. Demons are coming here from hell, using people as vessels to do god knows what. It would be obvious to hunters if reports of mysterious deaths started piling up. Having the deaths marked as overdoses doesn’t raise as many eyebrows.
Still…if the Order is somehow involved, then why did Antonio hear someone say something? Was it just so they could shift the blame to the Malus family? I inhale and push my shoulders back, needing to keep my cool. This could very well be a much bigger—and scarier—situation than I realized. I can’t tell them that the Order could be deeply involved. I don’t know for sure yet, and if they are, keeping the info close to the chest to blindside them with later might be necessary.
“Demons are dealing drugs,” another wolf states, but I hear the question in her voice.
“If that’s true, how the hell is some witch going to help with that?” the snarky wolf asks.
“This some witch is full of surprises,” Larkin says. “She just happens to have the highest kill count in the Order.”
Silence falls over the table.
“The Order?” one of the older wolves questions. He has a thick southern accent and shakes his head when he looks at me. “There’s no way the Order allowed a witch to join.”
“I didn’t join by choice,” I say, my heart still beating too fast for my liking. The balance between peace and chaos is hanging precariously right now. “I was kidnapped, for lack of a better term, by demon hunters when I was a baby and raised in the Order. Once they realized I was a witch, they exploited my powers and tried to make me their little super soldier. They ran experiments on me too, trying to see if they could replicate my powers so they could have their own army of magical hunters. It didn’t work.”
An older man who’s been quiet this whole time raises his hand to let everyone know he’s going to speak. “My son is a Charlotte police officer,” he starts. Delphi did mention they have people in the CPD. “He’s mentioned how there’s been chatter at the station around these weird deaths. We as werewolves know there are things out there that cannot be explained—”