“Would you ever attack a human?”
This was a tough one. I thought for a moment before speaking. “No. Not unless I was defending myself. We can all think and process information no matter what form
we’re in.”
“Who was the girl with the sword?”
I wasn’t touching that one. “She’s a friend of the pack.”
“But—”
“I can’t speak for her. She enjoys her privacy.” And any lie I gave could get me in just as much trouble as telling the truth.
“Do you have sex with wolves?”
What the hell kind of question was that? “No. I’m not into bestiality. Are you asking because you are?”
Dad cleared his throat. “My daughter is still in high school. Let’s try and keep the questions appropriate to that age.”
There was some tittering from the crowd.
“You said there were demons on the loose? Do you know how many? And what do we do to protect ourselves?”
Finally. Someone with a question I could deal with. “I don’t know how many, and until Luciana is apprehended, it’s safe to say she can keep calling them up. So, stay at home after dark. Keep your doors locked. And pray.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“I wish I had something better to say, but I can only hope that she’s found quickly.”
“Why is Luciana doing these things? What’s her motivation?”
I shrugged. Like I knew. The best I could come up with was her wanting more power, but she had plenty of that now. The latest attacks seemed like a plot to make the Weres look like villains, but beyond that, I kept wondering what her grand plan was. The destruction of all Weres? A world run by witches? Who knew at this point? “Why does anyone do anything bad? Why do rapists rape? Why do murderers kill people? I don’t know.”
Dad gripped my shoulder, and moved me gently out of the way. “That’s all we have time for right now. Thank you.”
The shouting drowned the rest of my thoughts as I stepped down from the podium. The reporters all pressed toward the barrier we’d set up. Only one person moved the opposite direction. Raphael pushed through the crowd on his way back to campus. I reached out to Claudia, and pulled her close so she’d hear me over the roar of the crowd. “Did I upset him?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so, but he’s… He’s not himself. He’s been through a lot.”
“Should I go after him? Apologize?” Although for what, I had no idea.
“No. Let him go. He’ll be okay.” The last sounded more like a question than a statement.
I understood. If it were my brother, I’d hope for the best, too. Still, as I watched the crowd part for him, I wondered if there was something more I could be doing for him. If there was something I should be doing for him. He’d been through so much already. But I couldn’t think of anything that would be helpful.
Luciana had a lot to answer for. She’d destroyed her coven. Her family. Murdered so many people. It had to stop. And soon.
We had to find her before she killed anyone else.
Chapter Eighteen
After the press conference, we grabbed food and headed to the labs. Now that we’d dealt with all the human drama, it was time to get to work. I had my messenger bag of stuff from Luciana’s craft room to show Claudia, and she had stuff from Peru to show me. If she’d brought back whatever she used to cure Raphael, then it was probably something that could help us against Luciana and her demons.
Hope blossomed that we might finally have a way to take her down.
Claudia, Adrian, Shane, Raphael, Cosette, and Dastien gathered with me in the lab. I hadn’t seen Beth since she found out about the coven, but I assumed the others were checking on her. The rest of the Weres were on guard duty. Dastien should’ve been with them, but he didn’t want to be apart from me today, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to argue. Although with Luciana on the loose and the ever-growing mob at our gates, they needed everyone they could get to keep the tension from boiling over.
Claudia placed her purse on the raised lab table. It clanged against the metal top. “All the objects I brought back from Peru are pure, white magic. They’re potent, and I think they can be used to fight Luciana. The trick will be how we use them.”