“Elena didn’t think you’d recognize me,” Ms. Muñoz said, indicating Santiago, who had stayed standing in the doorway to the living room. Muñoz herself was seated across the room from Park, about as far as she could get. She had her knees pulled up to her chest in a defensive posture, and though her hands were curled loosely beneath her raised thighs, Cooper had glanced a hint of claws. “But the Shepherd isn’t exactly known for forgetting a face.”
Park was sitting very still in his own seat. “I remember you,” he said. “Sofia Muñoz. Connecticut, fourteen years ago. Kreuger’s pack.”
“It was once. Not anymore. You made sure of that.”
“Kreuger broke the rules,” Park said evenly.
“Whose rules?” Muñoz laughed. “Yours? He just saw what your family had and wanted it for himself.”
Park frowned slightly. “He conscripted the most vulnerable people into his pack. He cut off support and watched and waited until they were at their lowest and had nowhere else to turn, and then swooped in acting like he was some kind of savior. Like they should be grateful for whatever scrap of dignity he allowed them. Like he wasn’t the one systematically cutting off every other option they had but to kneel at his feet.”
“Don’t make it sound like Thomas was some unique kind of monster, like what he did was different from any rebel pack or, hell, human government assistance.”
“No,” Park agreed. “But we’re not human, are we? And when he’d grown as big as he could absorbing desperate lone wolves, he started attacking other packs.”
“So the gods up on the hill sent the Shepherd down to put an end to him.”
Park glanced at Cooper and then quickly away, but not fast enough that Cooper didn’t see the fear in his eyes. “I didn’t kill him.”
“No, you didn’t. You broke him.” Muñoz’s voice had quieted, but the words somehow felt stronger, hit harder. Like they carried with them an anger and pain that had done nothing but fester and grow in the dark all these years. “You fought him and you broke his soul. Reached inside and snapped the very thing that made him who he was.”
Muñoz’s gaze grew distant, remembering. “I suppose someone like you doesn’t understand what it’s like, seeing your alpha hurt, defeated. But I felt it in my bones. A creeping, sick feeling. The wrongness of him weeping, curled up on the floor. The fear that he’d never get up again. What that meant for me, for our pack, my family.”
“You and Kreuger were...involved.” Park stated it, didn’t ask.
“I loved him. Well, he was my alpha, how could I not love him?” Muñoz said matter-of-factly, and Cooper shifted slightly. “But yes, we were mates, too. And then one day he was gone. Different. Ruined.” Muñoz smacked her lips in disgust. “And there you were. Just standing by, rebuttoning your shirt cuffs like you’d seen it all before. Like you were...bored.”
She put her feet down to the floor and leaned forward, voice going even quieter. “Do you remember what happened next?”
Park looked bored now as well. But Cooper had long since realized that the blanker his face, the more he was hiding. “You attacked me as I was leaving.”
Muñoz leaned back and spoke to Santiago without looking at her. “See, Len? I told you he’d remember. Though attack is a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it? I’d barely landed on you before you’d plucked me off like an irritating bug. No. That’s all you said. No. But I’d never felt dominance that strong. I had no choice but to obey.”
There was a deep, uncomfortable silence before Muñoz continued. “Kreuger was never the same, you know. He ran south. Somewhere out of the Park pack’s reach. And I was too scared to go with him.”
“I’m sorry,” Park said, and Muñoz shrugged and shook her head as if knocking the apology away with her shoulders.
“For months I was terrified you’d be back and no one could stop you. It changed me, too. Changed the whole course of my life,” she whispered. “I was twenty-one then. A baby.” She looked critically at Park. “Seeing you now, I guess you must have been young then yourself. But to me you were as ageless as El Cucuy and twice as frightening.”
Park blinked slowly, the barest acknowledgment that he was even listening, but to Cooper it was as obvious a reaction as if Park had begun to weep with pain.
Enough. Cooper stood abruptly and all three people in the room startled, looking to him. Feeling awkward, he jerkily crossed the room and stood behind Park. Trying to look as casual as possible, he positioned his forearms on the back of chair, letting the fingertips of his left hand rest lightly on Park’s shoulder. Park immediately leaned into the touch.
Ms. Muñoz watched the interaction with undisguised curiosity, and Cooper met her eyes defiantly.
You’re not allowed to hurt him. The thought came to Cooper with unexpected ferocity. He wasn’t sure what his face looked like, but he saw Ms. Muñoz’s eyes widen slightly.
He cleared his throat. “Not to be insensitive, but perhaps we could get to the point.”
Santiago spoke from her position in the doorway. “Thomas Kreuger became untouchable after that. Forbidden from rebuilding his own pack. Unwelcome in another’s. He became a pariah. And now he’s disappeared.”
“Kreuger is your possible victim.”
“That’s right. And as persona non grata with the Park pack, you can see why no one reporting him missing does not necessarily mean he’s not.”
“Are you saying my family had something to do with this?” Park asked calmly.
“Why, did you kill him?” Muñoz asked.
Cooper felt the vibration of Park’s restrained growl under his fingers, and he tightened his grip. The vibration stopped.
“Obviously you don’t think that or you wouldn’t have called us in,” Cooper said while attempting to keep his voice light. “So what is it you think actually happened to Mr. Kreuger?”
Muñoz gave one last hard stare at Park, then shifted her gaze to Cooper. “I don’t know. But I did get a phone call from Thomas a week before he disappeared. I was surprised to hear from him. We hadn’t spoken in a couple of years. But he knew—” she hesitated and glanced at Santiago, who did something complicated with her eyebrows “—I had a connection in the BSI. He told me something had happened.”
Cooper frowned, noticing the hesitation. The nonverbal communication, the way Santiago hovered behind Muñoz, not unlike the way Cooper was doing to Park... Was Santiago in a relationship Muñoz? If so, she clearly wasn’t interested in bringing it up.