“Hell, the informant was that bastard Ferdinand Massaro. And he was the one who changed you,” Jake growled. “Why did he have designs on you in the first place?”

He couldn’t help the way he felt about it. Not only was he pissed off that the man had turned her, still hating himself for not having been there to protect her, but the possibility that the man had raped her rested heavily on Jake’s mind. The vehemence in his voice had all eyes engaged on him. All except Alicia’s. She was wringing her hands in her lap, staring at the table.

Taking a deep breath to settle his irritation, Jake swept a curl away from her cheek and pressed a kiss to her temple. “We’ll take care of them.” His words were spoken quietly now but with dark resolution.

“But you don’t have a bounty hunter’s training. You can’t turn them in without it,” Alicia said, looking up at him.

“If they’re werewolves, Alicia,” he said, taking her hand in his and caressing the palm with his thumb, “they can’t go to jail.”

Her eyes were wide, filled with a fresh shimmer of tears. “But they can’t be allowed to get away with murdering my mother. They can’t!”

When she tried to pull her hand away from his, he held on even tighter, unwilling to let go of the tentative connection they had. He realized then she probably didn’t even know about werewolves’ longevity.

“We live long lives. Very long lives. If you’ve read any werewolf lore, you probably know it’s not easy to kill us. But what you might not know is one of the reasons werewolf legends have persisted from ancient times is that we live so many years.”

“You… told me you… were thirty,” Alicia said cautiously.

He cleared his throat and glanced at his brothers, then at Lelandi. Their faces were expectant, almost pitying. He had never expected to fall in love with a woman who would be newly turned. He wasn’t sure how to acclimate her to their ways without upsetting her. Then he squeezed her hand as her eyes filled with worry and questioning.

“Thirty in human years. In werewolf? We have a very slow aging process. Once we turn eighteen, the aging process slows down. Many humans look youthful for years—and it’s hard to tell exactly what age they are, but for us, the length of time is even longer. Charles II was crowned the King of Scots at Scone, the year I was born. The same year that the English forbade the transportation of goods produced in the colonies to England on non-English ships.”

Alicia glanced at Lelandi. She smiled. “I’m not quite that old. But any man who would ask a woman’s age is not a gentleman.”

Jake raised his brows at Lelandi, then turned to Alicia. “That’s part of the reason we can’t go to jail. Let’s say the men did get life in prison. They would outlive everyone. And appear to age way too slowly. If they’re not one of those who have very few human influences in their family roots, like Lelandi, a royal, they would have to shift sometime during the phases of the moon. Except for the new moon.”

He paused and stroked her hand again. “Can you imagine what the prison guards would say if they caught their prisoners pacing in their cells as wolves? Orange prison jumpsuits lying on the floor? The two men gone? If we determine they’re not werewolves, they can go to prison. You can turn them in for the bounty money even. But we’ll take them down.”

Alicia took a deep breath. “What if they are wolves?”

“We take care of ours in our own way. They won’t get away with murder, Alicia.”

She nodded and slid her free hand over his thigh. He smiled at her, sure that the look was as hungry as he felt for her.

“What did you plan to do today?” Darien asked Jake. “A couple of police detectives investigating the break-in at Alicia’s motel in Crestview called earlier this morning and said they wanted to get Alicia’s statement. I said they could speak with her in an hour or so. Hopefully, she won’t have the urge to shift. Beyond that, what do you intend to do?”

“I wanted to take Alicia to see Grandfather’s old homestead. But I need to locate Mario Constantino and Danny Massaro, too. And find out what happened to the other two thugs that vanished from the motel. The one she bit and the other who got away without injury. I need to learn if any of them were wolves.”

“I’ll have Tom and Peter check out the motel she was staying at. See if they can pick up any wolf scents. You stay here with Alicia,” Darien said.

“I can’t hide from him,” Alicia said. “I worry about your family.” She pointedly looked at Lelandi and her pregnant condition. “These men are ruthless.”

“You’re staying with us. You’re not going to act as bait,” Jake said, pointedly.

“What do you think we’re truly up against, Jake?” Darien asked. “You’ve seen some of these men.”

“The one who tried to force Alicia out of the restaurant was human. The one she shot on the hiking trail and the other with him were also humans. I don’t know about Mario. The air conditioner was blowing in the wrong direction for me to get a whiff of him. I never even considered he might be a wolf.” He paused and looked at Alicia. “You’re perfectly sure Ferdinand was the one who bit you and no one else?”

“He was the only one with me. When I came to, I’d been bitten. The two men who were interrogating him before they murdered him didn’t know I was there. I doubt another man—werewolf—was there, then conveniently disappeared after he had bitten me. Come to think of it, I did smell that a wolf had been in the room. At first, I thought it was just me. But all wolves give off a slightly different odor. I only got a whiff of the odor of decay from Ferdinand’s body since he’d been dead several hours before I could leave his apartment.”

“All right.” Jake considered the situation a moment more before speaking. “If Ferdinand Massaro was a wolf, then what about his brother, Danny?”

“They’re cousins to Mario,” Alicia explained.

“Then I’d say it’s very likely they could also be, but their henchmen are not,” Darien said. “I’ll make some inquiries into this Mario Constantino.”

Jake’s jaw tightened. Darien was the pack leader and it was his job to go after Mario, who was like the pack leader of a gang of thugs, whether he was a wolf or not. But Jake wanted to take Mario down. Call it the instinct to prove to his mate that he loved her, that he had the mettle and the intelligence necessary to take down the bastard who had threatened her, but he wanted to take more of a role in this.

Alicia’s gaze met his, and recognition dawned that he was feeling antsy about this whole situation. She said softly, “If you want to go and chase after the bad guys, I’ll understand.”

Then it hit him. He didn’t need to go after anyone. He needed to be right here—with her, for her. He wasn’t leaving her alone again.

He smiled evilly at her. “Last time you sent me away, you tore off without a word. That’s not happening again. Besides, like I said, I’m sticking by your side.”

She squeezed his hand in a way that said she was happy with his decision.

***

When the police from Crestview arrived to get Alicia’s story about the men breaking into her motel room and the one man’s death, they brought her purse and suitcase, for which she was grateful. They’d kept her gun, though, because she’d shot and killed one of the men who’d broken into her room.

She was more than nervous as Jake sat beside her in the great room filled with soft sofas and chairs enough for a big crowd. The room’s high, vaulted ceilings made it appear even more spacious, while more of Jake’s beautiful photographs adorned the walls. She wondered if he’d taken some of his photographs to the art gallery in Breckenridge because he’d run out of room in the house to hang any more.

Jake held her hand while Lelandi sat on the couch nearby, and Sheriff Peter, Darien, and Tom remained standing as they listened in.

Before the police detectives arrived, Jake had explained to Alicia how important it was to tell as much of the truth as she could to match the details of what the police might have uncovered without letting the werewolf tale out of the bag. She couldn’t help but be nervous as Jake’s family watched her, well aware that if she screwed this up and the police determined what really had happened, Jake and his brothers would most likely have to turn these detectives.

But she knew she must look as guilty as she felt about having to lie. Just as guilty as the people looked when she came for them as a bounty hunter with warrants for their arrest in hand.

Notebook and shining silver pen in hand, a dark-haired, mustached Detective Simpson now sat in a chair, leaning forward, intimidating, while his blond-haired, blue-eyed partner whose tie was just as blue, Detective Tandy, was standing nearby. Tandy had his hands shoved in pockets, his appearance solemn, trying for relaxed, but he was studying her every body movement, every hint of facial expression, waiting for her to give herself away before she even spoke.

Garnering her attention again, Detective Simpson said, “Tell us in your own words what happened exactly.” His voice was calm, but his posture denoted something else. He appeared ready to pounce if she said one thing that wasn’t in line with his view of the crime scene.

She swallowed hard, her hand clammy in Jake’s. He squeezed her hand lightly to reassure her. And instantly both men’s gazes refocused on Alicia and Jake’s clasped hands. She feared she would get nothing past them but the God’s honest truth. And that she couldn’t give.

“I… I was asleep when I heard someone trying to break into my room at the Crestview Motel. At first, I thought it was just a dream. I recalled someone was trying to unlock the door with a plastic card. I wasn’t sure what to do at first. But then I realized my gun was in my bag on the other side of the room. I rushed over to get it. When the man entered, using a flashlight to find his way, I was standing in a dark corner of the room. He saw the bed was empty and went into the bathroom. I heard him jerk the shower curtain aside.”