“Sit down,” Georgia said, this time the words softer, and we all moved around the table.

I followed Connor’s lead, taking a chair beside him. Georgia took the seat at the head, Wes and Cassie on the other side near the baby. When Miranda, Alexei, and Carlie took seats, Georgia looked at Connor.

“Is there anything you’d like to say?”

“About the food?”

She worked to hold back a smile. “About the occasion?”

“Oh, well.” He put his hands on the table, looked around at everyone, settled his gaze on Wes and Cassie. “I’ve already said congratulations, so I’ll just say that we’re glad to be here with you celebrating this moment. It’s a big deal when the Pack gets a new member. And especially when the new member is family.”

“’Cause it changes the odds in his favor,” Alexei murmured, and the others chuckled.

“That helps,” Connor acknowledged with a warm smile. “But it’s not the only reason. Family is family; family matters. It’s good to be here with you, and we appreciate the warm welcome.”

Miranda coughed an objection.

“Very subtle, Miranda,” Connor said quietly, voice flat.

She just rolled her eyes, looked away.

“We appreciate it,” he said again, looking at Georgia. “And this food. So let’s eat.”

“Hear, hear,” Georgia said, and we all raised our glasses.

I didn’t think it was an accident that none of them held the Alpha Stout.

* * *

* * *

The meal was one amazing dish after another. The chicken was juicy and perfectly flavored with butter and herbs. There were warm yeast rolls, carrots and asparagus, and a casserole dish of cheese potatoes covered in crispy tater tots.

If this was hot dish, I was in. And I felt very much like my mother’s child.

The conversation flowed naturally, from Grand Bay news, to Pack updates from Chicago, to very polite questions about my parents and Cadogan House.

“The idea of living in a giant dorm always seemed suspect to me,” Georgia said, stabbing an asparagus spear.

“Masters and Novitiates have a special relationship,” I said. “A kind of connection that makes them more like family than roommates.”

“Does that make it better?” Wes asked. “That’s like living at home with your parents.” He gave Georgia a wide smile.

“Very funny, child. Maybe you should go visit the vampires. See how they live.”

He looked at me. “That a possibility?”

“Probably so. As long as you aren’t afraid of fangs.”

When the eating slowed and Carlie excused herself to go back to the bakery, Connor pushed back his plate and took a contemplative sip of Alpha Stout he’d finally managed to convince some of them to try. Only the Chicago shifters—Miranda and Alexei—took him up on it, and Alexei made it only halfway through his glass.

“I don’t want to ruin a lovely evening,” Connor said, “but I’d like to talk about Loren.”

“We’ll talk,” Georgia agreed, picking a tater tot from her plate and popping it into her mouth. “Someone should.”

Connor looked at Cassie and Wes. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but he was left at the initiation. Were you having trouble with anyone?”

“We’ve discussed that,” Wes said, draping his arm protectively across the back of Cassie’s chair. “And the answer is no. We don’t have issues with anyone, and no one has issues with us, at least that we’ve seen. We’re family people. We tend to keep to ourselves.”

“We think it’s more likely they wanted to make a statement,” Cassie said, gaze on Wes. “The clan was together. The event was special. You leave the body there, you make a statement.”

Connor nodded. “Did anyone have any particular problems with Loren?”

“I don’t know of any real issues,” Georgia said, and she sounded convinced. But Cassie and Wes exchanged a look that said there was more to dig through here, more to consider.

“What about Cash?” Connor asked. “He seemed pretty eager to keep the investigation as low-key as possible.”

“That’s Cash,” Georgia said. “He doesn’t like humans, doesn’t trust them. Barely trusts anyone who isn’t clan. Certainly doesn’t trust anyone who isn’t Pack,” she said, with some chagrin, as she looked at me.

“Cassie?” I asked quietly. “Wes? Do you know of any problems with Loren?”

Cassie winced, looked apologetically at Georgia. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”

“It’s not ill if it’s the truth,” Georgia said. “So spit it out.”

“It’s just, there were some general complaints,” she said. “About how he didn’t really listen to concerns when they were brought to him. Same for Everett and Cash. The younger shifters want change. They want to revitalize the clan, the resort. They don’t feel like they’re being heard.”

“And me?” Georgia asked, spine snapping straight. “Are people having words about me they aren’t willing to say to my face?”

“No,” Cassie said kindly, and put a hand over her mother’s. “You care about the clan, and everyone knows that. Everett and Cash and Loren are . . . old-school. They care about staying in control. And sometimes, that’s at the expense of the clan.”

Georgia sat back, breathed in deeply, and took that in, waited for it to settle.

Cassie, concern in her eyes, looked at me. “I don’t know about anything specific, but—”

She looked at Wes, who nodded and said, “Tell them.”

“Loren was with Paisley before she died.”

The room went silent.

“How do you know?” Connor asked.

“I saw them. They were walking together along the main road. There’s a coffee shop about half a mile up. It’s a nice walk, so I assumed that’s where they were going. I was driving on my way into town. I waved, but I don’t think either of them saw me. Or at least they didn’t acknowledge me. I ran some errands in town, came back again. And that’s when I found out what happened.”

“I thought Loren found her after she was dead,” Connor said, which was what Marian had told us.

“That’s what I heard, too,” Georgia said, frowning and shifting in her seat, as if literally discomforted by the information.

“That may still be true,” Cassie said. “But it’s not the entire story. And it didn’t look like they were having a very good time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It looked like they were arguing about something. I mean, I couldn’t hear them. I could just see that they were talking kind of . . . energetically, I guess. Neither one of them looked particularly happy. I just figured they were disagreeing about something.”

“Did you tell anyone?” Connor asked.

“No,” she said. “There didn’t seem any point. Cash, the sheriff, and Loren decided it was an accident.”

“It could have been an accident,” Georgia said. “Paisley had no enemies. She was young, sweet. Naive but kind. Full of life. There’s no reason anyone would have wanted her dead—Loren or anyone else.”

Maybe not. But there were a lot of reasons for murder. Revenge was only one of them. She could have seen something she wasn’t supposed to. Or had something that someone else wanted.

“It was a horrible accident,” Georgia said, “and there’s no evidence of anything else. We have enough tragedy to focus on without creating more trouble for ourselves.”

Connor looked at her for a long time. “We found a print in the woods,” he said. “Big animal. Vaguely wolf but much bigger than anything else we’ve seen.”

I nearly pulled out my screen to show her the photograph, when Connor gently squeezed my knee. A sign to keep that to myself, I figured, so I just adjusted my napkin.

“Bigger?” Georgia said, leaning forward. “What’s bigger?”

“We were hoping you’d have some idea—since you live here,” he added.

“No,” she said, and glanced at the others, who seemed just as baffled—and concerned—as she did.

“Whatever made the prints smelled like Pack,” Connor said, delivering the final blow.

“No one in the clan would have killed Loren,” Georgia said. “We live with the clan, day in and day out. We’d know if someone was capable of—of what was done to him. We’d know,” she said again, stabbing a finger into the table to make her point.

“Okay,” Connor said. “You’d know more than me. But you’ll tell Cash what we found? Just so he’ll know, too?”

Georgia nodded. “I will.” But she pushed back her chair and rose, and walked back into the kitchen without another word.

* * *

* * *

The mood when we prepared to leave was much darker than it had been when we’d arrived.

Connor picked up the mostly full growler as we stepped out of Georgia’s cabin onto the porch; I had a container of leftover chicken I was already planning to eat for breakfast.

Georgia stepped into the doorway behind us. “Elisa.”

Her tone was concerned, serious, and I had to steel myself, prepare myself to turn around and meet her gaze.

“Yes?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

Her brows met at a point between her eyes. “The power,” she said. “It’s fighting you.”

Cold ran down my spine like ice water, and I had a vision of my mother’s face—tear streaked and sobbing—if she discovered what I really was.

“It’s fine,” I said, and could hear the tightness in my voice. “It’s handled.”

“Is it?”

Connor glanced back from the edge of the porch, brows lifted at the fact I’d stopped following him.