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Chapter 37
Holt cursed quietly under his breath, frustration rising like a heat wave up his spine.
The voice that came up behind him was unexpected: “Something the matter?”
Instead of jumping in surprise, Holt merely twitched, recognizing Seth by the sound of his voice even if he somehow hadn’t noticed his approaching scent or footsteps. Members of Moira’s pack all got used to her husband’s ghostly qualities, however, so Holt didn’t waste any time with shock or bewilderment. Instead, he just turned in his chair, watching as Seth pulled open the curtains in the secluded room that Holt had taken as a personal office. It was the third such room he’d found, and the only one that the pups hadn’t found him in yet. The sunlight that slanted in was from a lot higher angle than Holt expected, and he blinked against it before turning to his laptop to see that he really had been at this for longer than expected. S
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The disappearance of Simon Roen signaled the beginning of the end of the prosecution’s case against Marcus. While Simon continued to make himself suspiciously scarce, more evidence began to unfold, until quite a picture became obvious: Marcus had been drugged by the same substance that had been in his pack’s systems, making it incredibly unlikely that he’d been doing any killing, and more likely that whoever had killed his pack had also incapacitated him; something definitively fishy had gone on at the time of Marcus’ escape from custody, because while Marcus stated that he’d run when someone had forgotten to handcuff him, the official record actually said that the escape had been done by force. Nothing was adding up. Holt was trying to track down the guard who had been responsible for Marcus at the time of his escape from custody, but apparently that guard had quit some time ago with no forwarding address. Holt’s hunting paid off in another sector, though: t
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“That’s what I saw,” Declan maintained, as he and Marcus sat in Holt’s study, a light breakfast of toast half-eaten on desk between them. The lawyer was sitting behind the desk, looking deeply thoughtful and pensive, while Declan and Marcus sat on the other side – all of them showed signs of the early morning. Even Holt, usually dressed professionally in slacks, button-down, and vest, was in jeans and a T-shirt for once. Declan and Marcus were actually still in sleep-clothes, the former having woken them both up after Marcus’ dream and insisting that they report what he’d found. Marcus had dazedly agreed, but even now he didn’t look like he’d come to terms with what Declan was saying – he remembered the dream, and could verify all that Declan was reporting, but it was very clear that this newly unearthed information had shaken him to the core. He sat quietly, elbows on his knees and hands clasped, mouth pressed pensively against his knuckles while he st
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Seth was easy company, although Holt’s brain kept making things complicated by trying to untangle his most recent series of interactions with the Omega – and with Moira, for that matter. It wasn’t that the power-couple hadn’t been nice to their Beta lawyer, but Alan was beginning to suspect that he was being… flirted with? He wasn’t even sure how to categorize the past few encounters, especially since Moira and Seth were married. It wasn’t unheard of for Werewolves to be polyamorous by any stretch, but Moira and Seth’s entire history together had made it clear to anyone and everyone that they’d kill for each other. Anyone who had dared fuck with their dynamic in the past had been met with dire (and often bloody) consequences. So Holt wasn’t sure if he was in danger or not. Seth wasn’t helping Holt’s mental pacing: the Omega simply sat quietly during the whole drive, speaking rarely but looking contented. As an Omega, he could have sent out
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Declan came around slowly and groggily, sensing strangers close enough that they were touching him. His first reflex was to fight back, and he was thrashing almost before he’d fully recalled what had led to him being unconscious. The last thing he remembered was that psychopathic bastard Roen drugging him and threatening Marcus, and then telling him to ‘Go to sleep, Alpha.’ His left hand was also a strange mix of cold and numb that he couldn’t understand – although his nerve endings awoke in pain when he tried to make a fist and swing at someone.“Declan! Declan!” Marcus’ frantic voice reached him, and Declan tried to get his eyes to focus. He blurrily saw figures around him, but it was the familiar face of Marcus that he got his eyes to focus on first: a vivid bruise was forming all along his left cheek and his right arm was covered in bandages and a sling. Besides that, he also look
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