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  “I’m sorry I lied about the cell service. I wanted a few more hours with you. Like this.” He flashed that boy-next-door grin. “Well, not exactly like this. But time with you before I had to change how you looked at me by confessing my brother’s sins.”

  “Not that I believe you, but if you’re not Dean, then who the fuck are you?”

  “My name is Aden Webster. My credentials are in my bag, Miranda.”

  That was it; she was going for the cuffs to smash them into his perfect teeth. It occurred to her then his teeth were just like Jimmy Bancroft’s. “Papers can be faked.”

  “Listen to me. He knows we’re here, and he’s coming. Get your gun and let me go.”

  “Why should I?” Why was she even listening to this shit? “I can’t trust you.”

  “You can’t afford not to consider what I’m saying. Dean is my brother. I changed my last name when I joined the Bureau. I didn’t want there to be any connection between us. So I could hunt him.”

  “You know, Aden. People who are crazy never think they are.” She grabbed one leg to shove his foot back into his pants. “If you kick me,” she said, looking at his foot, “I’ll shoot you. Got me?”

  “I’m a Special Agent with the FBI. Get your cell and call who you need to so you can vet me.” He allowed her to drag his pants back up to his waist.

  “Why do you want him so bad then? If you are who you say you are? If he’s your brother, why do you want him in a cage?”

  “He’s a monster.”

  “Not good enough.” She scrambled to get her clothes on, pissed off that she could still be thinking about his cock.

  “He killed our sister here. Our mother. Our father. Our grandparents. Not on Lake Homme Dieu. But here on Lake Ida. They were his first victims.”

  She was still skeptical. “Then how are you still here? Why wasn’t his connection to the lake in the file?”

  “I work for the FBI, Miranda. I got rid of everything tying him to me or the lake. I knew one day he’d come back here, and this is where I’d kill him for what he’s done.”

  “You don’t get to decide to kill him, Aden. He goes back to prison to serve the sentence handed down by a court of law. The same law you swore to uphold.” She said all of this as if she believed him, and trusting in him wasn’t a luxury she had right now.

  “Oh, to the special supermax prison that’s supposed to be the tightest in the U.S. so he can escape it again? Kill again?”

  “That’s not up to us, and you can’t look at it that way, or this job will break you. If you’re really an FBI agent, you know that.” She dug around in her bag for her phone and saw that she had all her bars. Service was still active and available. Her missed call was from an 800 number. She was thankful she hadn’t signed up for the no-call list yet. That telemarketer might have saved her life.

  She dialed the number to the home office, gave her code number, then said, “This is U.S. Marshal Miranda Garrick requesting backup. I have the prisoner in custody. I am unsure of my exact location due to inclement weather. Last known position Betsy Ross Road, North West. Alexandria, Minnesota. I will leave my cell on for triangulation.”

  When another series of howls reverberated from what seemed to be right outside the door, Miranda scrambled to push the barricade into place, driven by some unknown fear.

  But the door exploded inward, knocking Miranda to the ground.

  “Isn’t that just lovely?” A low, gravelly voice sounded from the wild man-beast that stood there.

  He was large, his presence filling the doorway. The stench of death and rot she’d smelled on Bancroft and in the cave clung to him, so thick it was a physical presence. His eyes were bright and feral, peering out from his hard, stony face. A new tattoo covered the right side of his face and head, some kind of tribal marking. His clothes clung to him in tattered, dirty rags, but his feet were bare. She couldn’t help but notice his toenails were long and yellow, talons jutting from toes and feet that were black and crusted, but she couldn’t tell if it was dirt or frostbite.

  He spoke again, the sound drawing her gaze back up to his face. “Little Red already brought me the gift I wanted most. My brother.”

  Chapter Six

  MIRANDA DIDN’T KNOW another word stronger than fuck, but it was this moment that made her wish she did.

  Aden had been telling the truth.

  Fuck.

  She dove for her gun, but a giant beast that looked more Great Pyrenees than wolf pounced on her, its mouth curled back over long, sharp teeth right next to her cheek, it’s spittle dripping on her as its weight held her immobile. The gun was just out of reach.

  “Wouldn’t do that if I were you, Red. Or Sasha will tear your pretty face off.”

  His voice was so much like Aden’s. The way he moved, and now she saw it in the way he looked. The shape of his face, the curve of his mouth, but their eyes were different. Not just the heavy brow, but their depths.

  There was a darkness in Aden’s eyes, but it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t the pure reptilian, flat stare like Dean’s. She was once again reminded of switch-plate blanks—there was a space there for something, but this model didn’t come with those options: compassion, empathy, kindness. Those things were all as foreign to Dean Harvey Webster as the life of an ant was to a little boy with a magnifying glass on a hot summer day.

  “I’m so glad you came, Red. I knew you’d find my messages.”

  “What do you want from me, Dean?”

  “What do I want? It’s been a long time since a woman asked me what I wanted. Will you give me what I want?”

  “If I can. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

  “I want us to finish the fairy tale.”

  “A hunter kills the wolf in the end.”

  “Only after he eats Red and her grandma. Your grandmother is already dead, so I’ll have to settle for you.”

  “You mistake my part in this play, Dean. I’m the hunter.”

  He laughed, the sound making her shiver like spiders skittering up her spine. “It’s sweet that you think so. But my brother is the hunter. He’s had the role longer. Aden likes you. I knew he would. Everything’s come together so perfectly.” Dean sighed. “I’m going to kill you, Red. I’m going to fuck you raw, then I’m going to consume you in every way a creature can taste another. And my brother’s going to kill me for you. Not for our sister, not for our parents, but for you. Then the moon madness will be his curse to bear.” He laughed again and turned his attention to Aden.

  “Nothing to share, Aden? Where are your demands not to touch her? Or descriptions of how you’ll kill me if I do? Don’t you want to play along?”

  Aden’s mouth was a grim line. “You’re obviously the one in charge here, Dean.”

  Another one of the dog-beasts trotted inside at Dean’s command, and he pointed to Aden, ordering it to guard him.

  The animal bowed its head low to ground and whined, piss pooling in a puddle on the floor beneath it. And Aden smiled. It wasn’t a smile she’d seen from him before; it was as cold, empty, and predatory as Dean’s. “You know better than that, Dean. Miranda’s mine. Wholly. It won’t be long before your mutts will be afraid of her, too.”

  What the fuck did that mean? How did that play into Dean’s delusions? How could she work this? And how was she going to get this fucking animal off her before it got bored and decided to tear her face off anyway?

  “She still doesn’t believe any of this,” Dean said, growling low in his throat. “I can see it on her face. I’ll just have to show her.”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself, Dean. Remember when you tried to show the prison psychiatrist? Nothing happened. Clinical lycanthropy, brother. It’s all in your head.”

  “She chose to ignore what she saw. Her puny human mind couldn’t process.” His voice sounded several octaves deeper.

  He began to convulse, and he ripped his already shredded shirt from his body. He should’ve had frostbite, symptoms of exposure from being