“It’s also safe to say that Luke’s gonna freak when he hears that someone left a corpse on your porch.” Pulling her gorgeous riot of black curls into a ponytail, Kiesha amended, “Well, maybe not freak outwardly. Your guy is good at containing his emotions. It drives your mother nuts, because she never succeeds at drawing him into an argument or making him snap.”
A fond smile tugged at Blair’s mouth. He did indeed hold back, knowing it grated on Noelle more than any comeback ever would.
Despite having had six years to make her peace with the situation, Noelle simply would not accept Luke’s place in Blair’s life. She was still utterly determined to keep Blair close and so viewed his claim to her as a threat.
Oh, Noelle hadn’t tried to limit their contact—she’d kept her word on that. But she’d never treated him as anything other than an imposition. Yet, he hadn’t broken his promise to Blair; he hadn’t allowed her mother to chase him away, which Blair adored him for.
Noelle’s behavior had increasingly ate at and tainted their mother-daughter relationship. They’d come to blows over it countless times, especially during the period when Noelle had paraded unmated male bush dogs in front of Blair as if there was any chance she’d forsake Luke.
Sometimes, it was hard to believe that the same woman who doted on Blair in so many ways—crocheting her pretty blankets, baking her lemon cake every Sunday, treating her with trips to spas, gifting her special editions of her favorite books—would also be so set against Blair claiming her own mate. Noelle simply had a blind spot when it came to him. Or, more specifically, to what he represented—that she’d one day no longer have Blair so close.
Noelle likely would have changed her tune toward Luke if she could have convinced him to join the pack rather than take Blair to his pride. He had actually offered to make the transfer. But when Blair had vetoed it—feeling he’d be unhappy here and that they, as a couple, needed space from Noelle’s controlling ways—he’d supported her decision. Then he’d become ‘the bad guy’ in Noelle’s mind once again.
Sweeping her gaze over her pack mates, Blair said, “Someone needs to notify Macy’s pack of her death.”
“I will contact her Alpha at some point tonight,” said Embry, standing near the fireplace.
Noelle crossed to him, pinning him with eyes the same hazel shade as his own. The siblings also shared the same burnished-gold hair and tall build, though his was heavily muscled. “The fox’s pack had better not blame Blair for this. She might have had an … altercation with the fox not so long ago, but if my daughter had wanted to kill her she’d have done it that night.”
Blair felt her back teeth lock. Her inner animal unsheathed the tips of her claws in annoyance. There wouldn’t have been an “altercation” if Noelle hadn’t felt it necessary to play games. She glanced at Mitch, who’d propped one hip against the wall; the look on his face said he was having that exact same thought.
“I doubt anyone will consider Blair a suspect,” said Les, scraping a hand over his lightly bearded jaw as he moved to stand behind Noelle. “It would make no sense for her to kill Macy and then stage the body on her own porch.”
“Whoever did it also did a good job of sneaking onto our territory undetected,” said Antoine, the Head Enforcer, one tanned arm braced on the fire mantel. “There’s no evidence that she was killed anywhere on our land, so the question is … why did they bring the body here?”
“It’s not obvious by the bow that Macy’s corpse was meant to be some kind of sick gift to Blair?” asked Kiesha. “I can’t be the only person who noticed that the bow was identical to those attached to the other things that have been recently left on her porch.”
Blair had received a few gifts from an anonymous sender over the past couple of months. The previous presents were normal, albeit entirely inappropriate. And, like Kiesha, she had the feeling that the sender of said gifts had also killed Macy; that he’d removed the fox’s tongue to punish her for the hurtful things she’d said. Macy hadn’t only lied that she’d been sleeping with Luke; she’d also tossed all sorts of insults at Blair.
Noelle flapped a hand. “This is not at all connected to the gifts that Blair received. They were obviously from an admirer who wanted to court her but, fearing Devereaux’s reaction, didn’t feel comfortable openly doing so.”
Antoine nodded, making the short, brown waves atop his head ruffle. “No doubt about it, the bow is a red herring,” he added, an arrogant surety in his deep-set eyes. “Something to throw us off the scent.”