Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 60 - AND IT GETS MESSIER

"And the other one?" I asked quietly.

Seth sighed to himself. "Alpha Adrian's mate. We made the identification using her jewellery."

My eyes darted to Liam even as something cold and oily settled in my stomach. I doubted that had been Adrian, somehow. But Mason had been the one to kill him ... and I could certainly see that he'd had a motive to get rid of the poor girl - and with her, any chance that his brother could still sire a son. Maybe she'd been carrying a pup. Maybe not. I doubted he'd waited around to find out before killing her, too.

The way Liam was staring at the skeleton, those dark eyes restless and guilty and not the least bit surprised ... it made me all the more certain that he'd known about this.

I understood now why he'd been so quick to get Lilah out of the pack house. Why he'd had no trouble believing that Micah would hurt her. He'd seen it all happen before.

"Do me a favour," Liam told Seth in a voice that was so horribly, horribly quiet. "And don't tell Lilah."

"Of course. I'll try and keep it quiet. The pack doesn't need any more upset at a time like this," Seth murmured.

Because Mason was still the golden boy, wasn't he? They all adored him. And he would carry on being adored, even beyond the grave, because the pack still didn't know what an utter piece of shit he'd been. There was only one other body here that we could pin on him, but it also happened to be the only murder that had been justified.

Liam nodded. It took him a minute to tear his eyes away from that skeleton, but when he finally managed it, he just walked along the rows of bodies, checking each one in turn.

Seth and I exchanged a guarded look and followed him. It wasn't long before he stopped at a battered grey tarpaulin. The body itself wasn't visible, but a hastily written label listed it as female, 20-35 yo, multiple fractures and evidence of previous parturition. It wasn't the label that Liam was staring at, though. It was the tarp itself and the cords which had fastened it shut.

"This is my mother," he said.

Seth's face paled, and I felt my stomach fall away. The calm, even tone he was managing ... it was deceptive. And it was at odds with the miserable look that had those dark eyes of his looking so empty.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried not to imagine how he knew recognised those wrappings. I didn't know how old he had been when his mother had been killed, but ... old enough to remember, evidently.

I tangled our fingers together for the briefest of moments, squeezed hard, and then let go of him again. The realisation was probably written all over my face, because he took one look at me and rubbed the back of his neck ruefully.

"I couldn't stop them doing it," he said quietly. "I was too little. She tried to run away ... and she wanted to take us with her. Me and Mase. She would have got away if she'd just left us behind. I don't know why she didn't."

I kept gazing at him, but inwardly I was panicking. I didn't want him to tell me shit just because he was too tired to have inhibitions and then end up regretting it later. Equally, I didn't want to tell him to shut up while he was in the middle of sharing something. It wasn't often he told me things like that so willingly and unprompted, which was why I hadn't even known his mother was dead until last week.

Because Liam wasn't looking at me while he was talking, he couldn't see any of that. His eyes were still firmly fixed on his mother's body as he finished the story. "And because we went with her, because we didn't kick up a fuss, Dad made us watch. He said we should have known better. Mase wasn't ever the same after that. He was probably, like ... thirteen? He really did love her."