Page 70 of Angel of Water & Shadow

It was and it wasn’t. The supernatural had always been coming for me; last night I’d just decided to stop hiding from it.

“So, when does my members-only jacket come?”

Her cackle was a blast of warmth, but it was my own laugh that really surprised me—for a minute there, I’d thought I’d never smile again.

It faded quickly. “Can I ask…where is he now?” The name didn’t need repeating.

Shanley’s gaze lingered on the activity across the alley. “He’s awaiting his tribunal.”

I raised a brow.

“The Pack Elders will sentence him, and those complicit, at the next new moon. If they have time for it.” She ran her hand through her hair. “There’s a lot of shit to sort through these days.”

The weight of Shanley’s tone, her fidgets, they didn’t escape me. “What will they do to him? And those they find guilty?”

“Time will tell, but my ass is on the line. It happened under my watch, my rule.” Another cigarette loosed, the lighter shaking on the path to ignite it.

I stated the obvious. “You’re worried.”

Shanley shook it off. “Best not to dwell on worst-case scenarios. As the Pack Leader, I’m always going to be involved.” Her words didn’t match the restlessness of her bouncing heel. The silence had me figuring we’d moved on from the topic when she added, a bit breathless, “If you want to testify…it’d help the case. It could also impact the type and severity of his punishment. Only if you’re comfortable, though.”

Wow. The only thing better would be delivering Chet his sentence myself.

I imagined his stupid pretty face on the stand, orangey tan faded from weeks out of the pool, sweat dripping from the fringes of his grown-out buzz cut, standing so scared and so small even at six feet tall compared to the pillars of wolfen muscle surrounding him.

Chet Jennings: water polo star, scholarship awardee. Those words would mean nothing there. He would mean nothing there. “What do I have to do?”

“Go in front of our Elders and some witnesses, and tell them what happened,” Shanley blew out the smoke. “They’ll want to know everything.”

“Everything?” My muscles tensed.

“Every little detail.” Each of her words could have been their own sentence, they came out so purposeful and slow. A warning or a heads-up, or maybe she was alluding to my trick, the whole summoning-the-ocean-and-flooding-the-clearing thing. Whoops.

Or maybe she was referencing my and Chet’s obvious history. I didn’t know if I could relive all that, let alone aloud, and in front of Elders—strangers. Even if I told every single truth, served my shattered heart as proof…What if no one believed me? What if his charm superseded it all? It seemed to always get him what he wanted.

“I’ll think about it.” I cut off my snowballing thoughts. “You still haven’t answered my original question, though. Where is he?”

“He’s in a holding kennel. Yes, you heard that right. Kennel.” Shanley turned to me, and I swore the tip of a fang glistened in the sunlight. “Try not to hide your shock too much.”

I couldn’t even if I tried. The corners of my mouth twitched, fighting a smile.

“For all intents and purposes, Ch—he’s just a pup. He has no control. Not that he had much before, clearly.” She curled her lips over her teeth, up to the gums, lowering them quicker than they rose. “But now, it’s like learning to walk again. He’s flickering back and forth between man and wolf, and he’s completely engulfed by his new urges.”

“Sounds like the same guy to me,” I mumbled as we walked in stride to the dumpster, where she tossed her cigarette butts. “How long can you keep him for? Surely not…forever?”

Shanley’s look told me I’d be surprised. Then she shrugged. “Likely no, but his parents are too wealthy and aloof to notice his absence for now. At least he’s eighteen, or this could have been really messy.” And she added for emphasis, “We’d still hold him accountable.”

I didn’t know which night with Chet she was referring to now, but I nodded. As the dwindling afternoon light reflected in her eyes, I realized: she meant both.

“Hey.” She slowed to a stop. “It wasn’t your fault. You’re not responsible for anyone else’s behavior. You know that, right?”

“Thanks.” I gave her a tight-lipped grin. Even with what I wasn’t saying, Shanley understood the fear, how important hearing that was to me. “So,” I breathed, “he’s in the doghouse. Good.”

The image of him crammed into a red-roofed, uninsulated shed with rusty water bowls was enough to bring us both to hysterics—exactly what I needed before venturing off to find the psychic and discover more about my half-angel heritage.

Chapter 24

Somewhere along the stretch of pampas fields, and me being fully zoned out, Ryder announced, “I need to make a pit stop.”

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