Chapter 48

"I want to speak to the witness," the Detective declared.

"Well," Keri straightened and pulled her shirt down, "I'm in the middle of a questions session with my pack; you'll have to wait."

With that, my Alpha turned around to face her wards once more, speaking louder than she had with Callum so they could hear her.

"Anything else you'd like to know? Yes?" She prompted, pointing at Jizelle's mom.

"What steps have you taken to assure our safety?" The older woman asked.

"For now it's just the extra people we have in the field, but I'll be sending replacements out in an hour or so. After that, I'm summoning the Council so we could discuss a new defence strategy and come up with a new patrol schedule; the intruder might have had a lucky break, but it's more likely that they know about our current one. Anyone else?"

She look around the room, her eyes settling on the Beta who preceded me.

"Aunt Olivia?"

"And you will be sending extra patrols out there on other days as well?" Olivia asked. "Not only today?"

"Of course." The Alpha nodded, then turned to her cousin. "Jared?"

"How long are we going to be absent from school?"

"Yeah, I have a date." Kennedy quipped and a few pack members laughed. Our Alpha smiled, but our guest seemed to miss the humor in my baby brother's words; Callum's bushy eyebrows furrowed, his arms crossing over his chest.

"If we don't catch them, you'll stay on Silver Bullets ground for the rest of the week and after that, you'll have your parents and other members of the pack drive you to school," Keri replied and the teenagers groaned their protests. My friend allowed them a couple of minutes to vent, then raised her hands to silence them.

"Your safety is our primary concern, not how many cool points you'll lose by having mommy or daddy drive you to school. Not negotiable." She paused, prepared for an outcry that didn't come. "Any more questions?"

When no one raised a hand, she continued:

"Then you are dismissed. I'll contact the Council when I have a set time for the meeting."

The Bullets began to leave. I put my hand on Riley's shoulder to let him know we'd be staying behind. A few minutes later, it was only the two of us, Keri, the Detective and Conrad and his family.

"You had an intruder and yet you let that kid joke about a date?" Callum's gruff voice broke the silence. "Not very respect-inducing, is it?"

"His name is Kennedy and it was his way to lighten the mood," Keri explained evenly, but I could detect a hint of anxiety underneath her calm. "I assure you, he realizes this is a serious matter."

"I hope he does. So which one is my witness?" The Detective pointed with a large hand between Riley and Ivan.

"Your witness?" Keri raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

"If that wolf was one of your kind, it could be the murderer in my investigation. My investigation, my witness." The man stressed. "Is it this one?" He indicated towards my mate with a nod. "He looks too weak to be one of you; no muscle mass at all."

"Riley is not weak," I growled and stepped before him. My mate squeezed my hand and gently pulled me back, saying 'That's me, Sir' to the Detective.

"No need for the 'Sir', Riley," Keri noted.

"I'm used to it," Callum commented.

"Still - no need," my best friend insisted through a tight-lipped smile. "And yes, Riley is our witness."

"I want to question him. Come on." Callum walked towards the stairs, beckoning Riley with his finger.

"Do I need to remind you that you are on my territory, Callum?" The Alpha raised her voice, any attempts at tolerance discarded. "You don't get to boss my people around."

"Do I need to remind you, Ms Greer..." the man suddenly turned, towering over my Alpha, even though she was a tall woman; with that built, Callum must've been even more imposing in his youth and before the drinking. I suppressed the urge to stand next to my friend; she'd want to deal with him alone, especially when he was questioning her authority.

"... That I am a Detective with the Woodbury police," he went on, "and that this boy is human and not a part of your pack. I have roughly twenty years on the job, kid; don't tell me how to do it."

Keri bristled, her face going red and her elegant fingers forming a tight fist.

"I am not a kid, Detective." Her tone was chillingly cool. "I am Keri Greer, Alpha of the Silver Bullets. I was chosen to be so after proving my worth and you will respect me for it."

She didn't even need to raise her voice. That whisper - a menacing warning - was enough to send a shiver through us. I could see it on our faces; all of us, except for Callum who straightened up. I was sure he'd felt the danger as well, but was too proud to show it, just like Keri was too proud to let us speak up for her when she was arguing with him. With strong personalities like that and such different outlooks on life, it wasn't surprising they began to fight as soon as they entered the same room. Sometimes you couldn't even pinpoint exactly how they waged their war; you could just feel the tension on their battlefield.

"Now we are going to go downstairs to the back room where Riley will share with you what he'd already told us." Our Alpha was looking the Detective right in the eyes; neither was blinking. "And he'll do that on his own terms. No interrogations. Do I make myself clear, Detective?"

"Like a raindrop, Ms Greer," the reply came through a clenched jaw.

Keri turned towards Riley:

"Ready?"

He nodded and with an 'okay then,' she led the Detective, Riley and me towards the stairs, but halted as she reached them to throw one last blow at Callum's face that made me happy as her friend and proud as her Beta:

"Oh, and Riley might be human, but he's Rhys' mate; he is one of us."

The back room, which was Conrad's office and occasionally the place for Council meetings, was just as dimly lit as always. Once a part of the storage room, it lacked windows, but the pub owner had managed to give it a level of cosiness - as cosy as an office could've been - with a sturdy desk, comfy chair and sofas, bookshelves and lots of pictures hanging from the wall; most of them were precious family moments caught on camera, but there was also a large painting of our sacred tree with wolves sitting or standing underneath it.

We'd barely walked into the room, when Callum began his onslaught of questions.

"What exactly did you see... Riley, was it?"

"Yes, Sir. Riley Rivers."

"How about we first sit down?" Keri beat me to the offer. "Maybe on the sofa?" The last was a suggestion to my mate. Once he settled, I took the chair to his right, grasping his hand.

I'm here, my mate. Relax.

He began to narrate his story, starting with how I took him to the workout, how Jasper had asked to speak to me alone, how he was then approached by the intruder who didn't try to strike him, but unnerved him nevertheless.

The Detective listened quietly, creases appearing on his forehead while Riley described the wolf's odd behaviour.

"So it wasn't aggressive in any way?" Callum asked with that rasp in his voice that was typical to heavy smokers. Kelly sneaked into the room, quietly, not to disturb us.

"No, Sir."

The Detective leaned back against the desk, placing a hand underneath his chin, the creases on his forehead deepening.

"What happened to the clothes?" He finally asked.

"What?" Riley looked at me for an explanation, but I was just as lost.

"What do you mean?" It was Keri who spoke.

"I mean," the Detective pushed himself off the desk, "that when you shift, your clothes don't change. Riley saw an unclothed wolf which means that they took off their clothes before the encounter and then put them back on when they escaped. I don't suppose you found any t-shirts or jeans or anything like that lying around?"

Keri and I shook our heads.

"Too bad." He sighed. "If they left even one piece of clothing in their hurry to get away from you, then we might've been able to get some DNA and compare it to that from the crime scene. That way, we would've known if it's the same person."

"The scent I sniffed was unfamiliar and it wasn't like that from the crime scene," Kelly assured us. She had missed the meeting to investigate the grounds.

"I still have to sample the scents beyond the river in case I catch a whiff of them in human form, but the one from the crime scene was that of a shifter; if I were to recognize them, it will be in their wolf form," she explained for Riley or for Callum, or perhaps for both of them.

"That will be a relief for the pack, that their wolf scent is different from that on the crime scene." Keri welcomed the news. "Whoever they are, they don't seem to pose a threat, at least not at the moment."

"But they knew our patrols' schedule." I pointed out. "They must have, in order to get so close and then leave without getting caught. That is disturbing."

Both of the women nodded.

"Riley," I turned to my mate, "were they a fast runner?"

"I don't know."

"Did they swirl around quickly, did they stumble?" I prompted. "How long was it before they ran out of sight?"

"They didn't run," he uttered slowly, as if he was just realizing himself how strange that was. "They heard you and calmly turned around and walked away."

"Walked? They walked?" I repeated.

"Yeah."

My gaze fell on Keri, then on Kelly. They both seemed just as astonished as I was.

This shifter had invaded pack territory, but they'd been calm?

And that with at least two shifters close by?

Had they really been a shifter?

A lone wolf was more likely to be composed around us than a shifter outsider.

But everything else pointed to a shifter. How they'd scouted our patrols, how their scent disappeared, indicating they switched to a human form... And that odd coloring. There were no animals with such coat in these parts.

"That's one more thing I'll have to tell the Council," Keri spoke, "that whoever they are, they obviously don't fear us." She looked at the watch on her wrist. "Speaking of which, I better summon them. We have a lot to talk about, we need to come up with a new schedule for the patrols, with a report for the Sentinels... Yes, the Sentinels might be able to help..." She focused her attention on her cousin. "Kelly, can you arrange for new patrols to replace the current ones?"

The other woman nodded.

"I want you to be one of the replacements. Go beyond the river, see what you can sniff. I'll alert the Sentinels that we might need them and ask them to send someone over. Rhys, take Riley to your parents' house and then call the Council. The meeting will be at my house, not in the pub."

I got up without letting go of Riley's hand and led him to the door.

"I imagine there's no point in asking you to hold your tongue during the meeting and to leave the decision making to us?"

Even before I'd looked over my shoulder, I knew she was talking to Callum; there was that battle ready tone again.

"None," the man stated, his hands crossed over his chest again.

Was it safe to leave them on their own?

BONUS - Callum's POV

The door closed, leaving the two of us alone and my eyes searched about the room on their own volition, knowing I wouldn't find what I desired. I cussed in my mind, once again thinking how ridiculous it was that the back room of a pub had no alcohol in it.

I needed a drink.

It's been a long night and coming here after my shift to deal with inhuman problems didn't exactly help me recharge.

And I was cold.

Always cold, even in the summer, even in my long coat.

I needed that warm sting that alcohol produced when it slid down my throat.

I also needed a smoke. And yet, this room was a no smoking area, as Ms Greer had not so patiently reminded me each time I'd reached for my cancer sticks.

"You really can't let go of control, can you?" She asked me as she put her hair up in a bun, exposing a delicate neck under the collar of a crisp cream shirt. She'd always seemed too refined to babysit these wolves. The woman belonged in a courtroom as the lawyer she had studied to be, not in this dimly lit room or holding meetings in an old pub.

"Control is necessary," I replied, reaching for my pocket, but halting before I took out my cigarettes. No smoking in a pub; who the fuck thought of that?

"Sometimes you just have to put your foot down," I added.

"We are a democratic pack," she noted, thinking I was criticizing her management model for its flaws... And it had many, not that she'd asked me for my opinion.

"But you are the leader; act like one."

I licked my lips; I really needed that drink. I shouldn't bother teaching her. It wasn't my job. I was here to find out whether there was a connection between my case and their intruder. And yet...

"You have to take care of that Jasper guy."

She sighed and walked behind the desk, sitting down on the chair. I imagined she used the wooden surface as a fence to restrain herself from grabbing me by the collar and shaking me, telling me to let her run her own pack. Or, at least, something amongst those lines. Although this was Keri Greer; she'd probably go for a punch once I'd overstepped my boundaries to the extend I turned her violent.

And what a punch it would be!

I'd seen this woman in the gym, working on the punching bag. A fractured jaw or a broken nose awaited me without a doubt, if I didn't block or dodge on time.

"Jasper is not a priority," she announced.

"He should be," I declared, looking down at her. "He is out of your control. A single member out of line could cause a whole lot of damage, Ms Greer. You should deal with him as soon as you can."

And I should stop butting in things that didn't concern me... I could really use that drink! If not for else, but to shut me up.

It wasn't my business to tell her how to deal with her wolves and I could understand why she was so frustrated with me. Even I pissed myself off in situations like these.

But I couldn't always hold myself back; she could use the help. Even if I didn't want to have anything to do with shifters and the like - except for Kelly, the exemplary officer that she was - I found myself gushing advice more often than I fancied.

Keri had the face and the bearing of a young woman, but she was only a child when it came to leading.

Sometimes I though she didn't even want to be an Alpha and had taken the position to please the rest of the shifters. That tendency to always put everyone else before her all the time was destructive. She had to be a little selfish from time to time, she had to take care of her own needs and desires. I realized that, and yet, I could help but admire how selfless she was.

I shouldn't have admired her so much.

I shouldn't have admired her in the way I did.

With the bonus POV I promised you, the chapter turned out a lot longer than usual. Did you enjoy it?

How did it feel to be in Callum's head?

What do you think of him now?

Please support the chapter with a VOTE and have a great time wattpadding!

PS: Which separator do you prefer for a time skip and a change of POV: ***** or the paws?

Thanks for letting me know!