Larry sat down next to Royce.
Ricky was probably in the viewing room.
“If a wolf turned you and your other kidnapper friends and left you to cope on your own, he would be in trouble himself,” Kira said. “That’s why we need to know which wolf turned you.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were at a bar in Denver—” Fisher said.
“How did you know about that?” Royce ran his hands through his hair. “How were you turned?”
“Generations ago. We were all born as wolf shifters,” Fisher said.
Royce’s eyes grew big.
“We don’t have the issue of shifting during the full moon phase like newly turned wolves do. The one who turned you should have had a good reason for doing so. Like he was protecting himself from you and bit you in self-defense.” Kira straightened on her chair. “Or you caught him shifting and he had to make you one of us or kill you.”
Royce’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” Kira said.
“We didn’t see her shifting,” Royce said.
“Her?” Kira asked.
“Yeah, she was at the bar.”
“Alone?” Fisher asked.
“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe she was with others.” Royce shrugged.
“Okay, so if she was at the bar when you were, she wouldn’t have been shifting into her wolf to bite you. The three of you were there? You, your cousin, and Reggie?” Fisher asked.
“Yes.”
“So how did it happen?” Kira asked.
“She was a beautiful blond, and she had the most entrancing blue eyes. Reggie wanted to talk to her and of course we went with him. She wasn’t interested in him, or us. Probably because we’d had too much to drink.”
“You badgered her,” Kira guessed. “She would have been dressed. To shift and bite you, she would have had to have removed her clothes.”
Royce ground his teeth.
“Tell the truth. You know we can smell deception on you,” Kira said. Though Bridget was the key to learning the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.
Royce began tapping his foot on the floor under the table. And he sat back away from the table as if wanting to distance himself from the discussion.
“You pushed yourselves on the she-wolf and she had no other choice but to protect herself.” Just like Kira had to do when she was young when the kidnapper grabbed her. At least that’s what she suspected had happened to the she-wolf.
“Reggie tore her dress,” Bridget said. “The she-wolf was both angered and afraid.”
Royce swung around to look at her. “You don’t know that.”
“I can guess that’s why she was out of her clothes so quickly. The next step was for her to shift,” Bridget said. “If she was mostly undressed, she would have been able to shift more easily.”
“When you saw her shift—” Kira said.
“I didn’t! I mean, after we started shifting, we realized that all we had time for was to blink our eyes and the person was a dog. Besides, I was a little inebriated. All of us were. All I remember is that a vicious dog was suddenly standing there, growling. Reggie brandished a knife and I thought he was going to protect us.”