Murder

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She didn't speak for hours. Not even when Judd had set her gently down on his bed. There was darkness swirling behind her open unblinking eyes and she didn't know how to handle it. She only moved when the black in her mind had begun to writhe. It had sunk into every corner of her body and brain until she couldn't handle it any longer. She couldn't stand it, laying back in the dark while something crawled all over her.

Suddenly, her breathing came out in heavy gasps, eyes wide as she tried to calm her raging heart. The room was even dark, almost as dark as her mind had been a moment before. At least the shadows linger in this place. 

But there was a set of glowing eyes in the corner, reddish gold. Copper.

She closed her mouth and tried to swallow around what had corked itself in her throat. Fear? Resentment?

Contentment?

The eyes blinked once before shifting, going from a wolfs gaze to humans before slipping onto the bed beside her, gently, as if his presence would spook her. His warm hand pressed into her bare knee, scorching her skin enough to bring her back to reality.

"Neira," He said quietly, the word like a caress in the air between them. It was like his breath had taken on the form of a butterfly's wing. 

After a moment she met his gaze. "Judd." It was clipped but still, only a whisper pushed out between her teeth in a quick short exhale.

He looked away from her, eyes pressing tightly closed. "I-," he trailed off before turning his eyes back to hers. "I didn't mean for you to find out like that."

He didn't mean for her to find out at all.

Everything from earlier came rushing back to her. The standoff in front of the cabin, the conversation exchanged, the man before he had turned into that - creature.

The conversation...

The other woman, the dead other woman.

And suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch, she was back in her own body. And angry.

He saw it as clear as if it was written on her pretty face, the fury. He pulled his hand away from her knee.

"What happened to her?" Neira asked as calmly as she could but he heard the bite in her words.

Judd sighed, knowing now he couldn't avoid it. Not now when Shade had ripped away the lid on an already boiling over pot.

"Her name was Kauri," Judd started rubbing a hand over his face with shaking fingers. "Her, Shade and I grew up together in the same pack. My fathers pack."

Neira started. They grew up together? She wasn't sure why but the whole concept felt alien. Like Judd and that thing shouldn't exist in the same universe.

"We were friends and I guess when Kauri first started to show signs of her cycle that's when things got tense. For a while, I thought she was going to ask Shade to be her mate but the thought of her being with someone else drove me mad. So when she did finally ask me I couldn't say no. She went into it earlier then everyone thought she would and she was with Shade when it hit her.

"When I got there he was holding her and-."

His face crumpled, and she watched as shadows darkened his expression. "When I finally got her away from him she was screaming, the pain was too much for her and I panicked. Shade was gone before I knew what I was doing, that I had marked her.

"She had been quiet after that, so still I thought she was injured or I had done something more. I carried her back to the out-camp within my father's territory to help her through the rest of the heat."

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