Except—
“I did.”
“You didwhat?” I gulp out.
“The teeth marks are mine.”
Yes.I already know that.We’ve proved that.But I thought… I hoped…that somehow Rogan had been set up.That someone had a cast of his bite and planted the evidence.Perhaps that’s still the case.
“I killed them, Hannah.But I had good reason.”
I curl my hands into fists.“What good reason did you have for murdering two vampires?”I grit out.
“It wasn’t murder.”
“You just said—”
“I said I killed them.I didnotmurder them.I was defending members of my pack.”
“Damn it, Rogan, their hearts were cut out.That’s fucking murder.”
He shakes his head vehemently.“That wasn’t me.I swear it.I killed them, yes, and I had good reason.But I didnotcut out their hearts.”
His eyes are big and round, his irises pulsing as if he’s going to change.He’s not lying, and I know he’s not.I’ve known from the beginning when my father first brought it up.I replay the conversation in my mind.
“The lycan in question is an alpha named Victor Rogan,” my father says. “He’s been linked to two vamp slayings in the past month.”
“Linked how?”
“His bite marks were found on the chests of both corpses.”
I should probably feel something. Two vampires dead. Despite my paternity, though, I don’t feel a connection to the Brotherhood. “So? Lots of vamps get bitten by weres and live to tell the tale. Lycans are hardly lethal to us.”
“They are when they literally eat our hearts out.”
This time I feel something. Chills slither along the back of my neck. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. The victims’ hearts were gone, and Rogan’s marks were all over them.”
“Still circumstantial.”
“Circumstantial how? You think he attacked them, left them immobile, and then someone else came along and sliced out their hearts?”
“Why not? The lycans know better than to mess with us.”
I can’t help a sarcastic chuckle.The lycans know better than to mess with us.That was my thought at the time.
That was before I met Victor Rogan.
Victor Rogan is as alpha as they come, and he’ll mess with anyone.Vampire, demon, you name it.
Rogan is badass.
But he’s not a murderer.
I felt it then, and I feel it now.
And yes, he may have killed, but he’s not a killer.