“Please,” Aria said.
Luke glanced at her. His guilt warred with his fear and his most primal instincts and, unbelievably, his guilt won—at least a little. The words tumbled out of him in a rush, like he needed to say them before his better judgment interfered.
“He learned everything from his dad—my uncle Isaac. He used to lead us, but he died last year.”
Colby felt an unwanted stab of empathy at that. He and Eli Hebbert had that experience in common.
Of course, he hadn’t channeled it into killing people and terrifying innocent women.
“Uncle Isaac taught us to move around a lot,” Luke continued. “We’ve been all over the map. Eli would go anywhere with a good hunting ground, and Weston would follow him anywhere.”
Colby remembered that detail from Eli’s file. Weston was Eli Hebbert’s brother: younger and dumber, but just as vicious.
“Is it just Eli and Weston?”
“Now that they’ve dropped me,” Luke said morosely.
“Is there anyone they’d go to? Close family? Friends?” He paused. “Connections?”
Colby had been out of the loop since his dad had died, and he barely knew the local wolf packs. But he knew they were there. They’d been his dad’s card-playing buddies.
And thanks to all the fresh venison they’d left on his doorstep after the funeral, he hadn’t had to buy meat for a month. It was the werewolf equivalent of bringing over casseroles.
It had been a gesture—one he’d been too grief-stricken back then to acknowledge.
Had Eli picked up the pack connections Colby had ignored?
But Luke was shaking his head. “Friends aren’t part of the plan.”
“What plan?’
“Nature’s plan.”
Colby had had it up to here with all the back-to-nature horseshit this kid’s cousins had loaded him down with. He’d already seen the kind of damage and loneliness that kind of snobby, more-shifter-than-thou attitude had caused in Theo, and Theo’s family had at least let him grow up with indoor plumbing and polo ponies and basically every other material advantage a kid could have.
Luke had gotten bullied into thinking that a limp and a likely need for glasses meant that he was defective, and that being a werewolf meant it was dumb and childish and weak for him to want friends.
He at least had some idea on how to start fixing some of that. But he wanted to make sure they were done here first.
“Girlfriend? I know he’s had those.”
Luke made a face. “If you want to call them that. He’s not really nice to them.”
“I’d go a little further than that,” Colby said quietly, “considering one of them died.”
“What?” The kid seemed genuinely startled. “One of them died?”
He had looked through the file, so he thankfully didn’t have to just rely on Wilson’s “podunk town” description. “Amanda Briar, in East Newton.”
Luke looked like he was going to be sick. “I didn’t know that. I swear. I never knew he did anything to her. He just likes getting laid, you know? He says he likes to find women who are like rabbits—all cute and jumpy. But they like him. I’ve met some of them before, and it’s true.”
“They probably think he’s just your classic bad boy,” Aria said. “A little rough around the edges. A safe kind of being scared, like a rollercoaster.” She swallowed. “Except it wasn’t too safe for Amanda, was it?”
“She was nice,” Luke said. “She was—she was really nice.”
“Is there anyone nice here?” Colby said. He needed to press the advantage while he had it. “Does he have a new girlfriend?”
“No! He’s been laying low. He’s barely done anything.”