We were al in trouble if he had.

There wasn’t an Alpha in the world who wouldn’t shred anything and anyone standing between him and his wife. Marc’s attachment to me paled in comparison with what most Alphas felt for their wives, which was probably why Daddy hadn’t punished him for what he’d done to Jace; Daddy understood. There was nothing my father wouldn’t do for my mother. Nothing at al .

I crossed my bedroom slowly, reluctantly, and was reaching for the doorknob when it began to turn on its own. The door swung open. I stepped back, expecting to see Marc. It was Michael, looking just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

“Marc said you locked yourself in the bathroom.”

I stared up at him, trying with no luck to read his expression. “I’m out now.”

“I see that. Can I come in?”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Sit down,” he said, coming in without permission. I stepped back to make room for him, but remained standing. He closed the door, and my heart began to pound.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I took another step back, rubbing my elbows to have something to do with my hands. “Did Daddy send you?”

Sympathy leaked into his eyes. “You know he did.”

I nodded. Marc wouldn’t have left without my father’s permission and a real y good reason. Something was wrong, and it had to do with the whispers coming from the living room and the woman crying in the kitchen. “What happened?”

“Are you going to sit?”

“No. Just tel me.” I was already tired of begging for answers. Why was everyone always beating around the proverbial bush, as if I were too delicate a flower to withstand whatever had gone wrong this time?

Michael leaned against the door and took off his glasses. He exhaled softly as he inspected the lenses of his useless spectacles. “Vic just called. They found Sara.”

They found her? That was good news, so why wouldn’t he put down the damn glasses and look at me?

A chil raced through me, leaving my hands cold. I crossed the room to my dresser and grabbed a bottle of lotion. My hands shook as I squeezed a dollop onto my palm. I used the back of my wrist to flip the lid closed and tried to set the bottle down gently, but it fel over on its side. “Where?” I concentrated on smearing the lotion al over my arms, working it in especial y wel on my elbows.

Michael settled his glasses onto his nose. “At home. The bastards propped her up against a tree in her own backyard, like a life-size doll.”

My eyes darted to his face as I tried to make sense out of what he’d said.

Propped her up? I could think of several reasons Sara might need to be propped up, but there was only one reason to bring her home, and it wasn’t because she’d said “pretty please.”

Michael’s lips were stil moving, but I couldn’t hear him. I glanced down at my arms, rubbing at the lotion in quick, spastic motions.

“Are you listening to me, Faythe?” he asked, concern narrowing his eyes. He took three steps away from the door, then hesitated.

“No, I’m not.” I reached across my dresser for more lotion and knocked over an unopened bottle of perfume my mother had given me for Christmas three years earlier. The glass didn’t break, which was fortunate, because I knew without ever having smel ed it that the scent would give me a migraine. Nearly everything my mother picked out for me gave me a migraine. Or maybe they were tension headaches.

“You okay?”

I glanced at Michael, almost surprised to realize he was stil there. “No. Are you?”

He shook his head. “I guess no one’s okay right now.”

Squeezing my eyes shut against tears, I turned the lotion over my palm and squeezed, but nothing

came out. I shook it and squeezed again with the same result. Irritated, I turned the bottle right side up and glanced at the lid. Damn. Forgot to open it. “Do her parents know?”

“Dad told them in private.” Michael shuffled his feet on the carpet, head bent to watch them. “Mom’s helping with Donna. They had to sedate her.”

“What about Kyle?” I set the lotion back on my dresser, stil unopened. I was moisturized enough.

“Not yet. His flight lands in about half an hour, and Dad doesn’t want him to know until he gets here.”

That was probably wise. Kyle would need privacy to voice his grief, and an airport was hardly private.

“How…?” I closed my eyes, and tried again. “What did they do to her?”

“No, Faythe,” Michael said, and I opened my eyes to see him frowning firmly.

“You don’t need to hear the specifics. It won’t help.”

“She was my friend, and I need to know.”

He shook his head, slowly, and not unsympathetical y. But he didn’t speak.

“Please, Michael.” That worked. Or maybe he just final y understood that her death wouldn’t real y sink in until I heard it out loud.

“I don’t have many details,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of yet another dark suit.

“Just tell me what you know.”

He nodded, shuffling back to lean against the wal by the door, as if he needed support. “They beat the shit out of her. Hit her in the head with something hard.

The whole back of her skull was smashed in.”

My fists clenched around air, and his face blurred as tears distorted my vision.

“You said ‘bastards.’ Plural. How do they know there was more than one?”